"... Echoing calls from Fort Smith earlier last month, Yellowknifers made a hardline push for at least half of resource revenues garnered through devolution to be put into the Heritage Fund for safekeeping for future generations at last week’s public meeting. ...
Though Miltenberger’s plan is to put 5 per cent of that $42 million into the NWT’s new Heritage Fund, saving the rest for infrastructure and debt repayment, residents attending the meeting in Yellowknife requested anywhere between half and 100 per cent of the revenues from non-renewables to be put aside for future generations who won’t be able to benefit from those resources.
Yellowknife’s Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro was one of them. Though she agreed with Miltenberger’s intent to ensure no resource revenues are allocated for programs and services – for which the government already invests $1.4 billion annually – she said a 5 per cent investment for the future was disappointing.
“In my view, we should be placing a minimum of 25 per cent of our anticipated resource revenues into the Heritage Fund, and it should be so stated in legislation, not in regulations which are easily changed by government without any discussion with, or input from, the public,” she said in legislature last week...."
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"...Residents in Fort Smith also called for at least 25 per cent to be put towards the fund, with the preference of 100 per cent, as is done in Norway, whose Heritage Fund currently boasts around $730 billion. [...] The department has two communities left on its budget consultation tour. Miltenberger and his Finance staff will be in Inuvik on Nov. 12 and Norman Wells on Nov. 13...."