Premier Dennis Fentie refuses to entertain calls for an early election by Opposition Leader Arthur Mitchell and vows his majority government will carry on to the end of its 2011 mandate.

"The Yukon Party government was elected to serve this territory for five years. We have every intention of doing that,” the 59-year-old Fentie replied to Mitchell's hounding.

When the legislative sitting began Mar. 25, Fentie, who also serves as Minister of Finance, tabled the territory's second-consecutive billion-dollar budget, but doubts about the government's fiscal management ability dogged the premier throughout the 33 days of question periods and general debate.

The government overshot last year's budget by $43 million, and the meagre surplus of $2.9 million for 2010/2011 was spent before legislators voted to pass this year's spending regime.

When government workers with the Yukon Employees' Union ratified their new collective agreement earlier this month, it added more than $7 million in wage expenses not apportioned.

But Fentie is loath to acknowledge there will be any deficit, and points to the government's cash in the bank as security.

"There's going to be a net financial resource position. Are we going to spend more money than this year than we take in? Possibly,” he told the Star Thursday afternoon during a break in proceedings.

"But we haven't done the calculations on own source revenues, on the provincial local expenditure basis and all the mechanisms in the territorial formula financing ... all these things are yet to be calculated.”

And the government must also weather another fire season following a relatively dry winter, that officials say make conditions more ripe for wildfires.

The flu season this fall could also gobble up the Yukon's "net financial” position.

Last season's mass H1N1 vaccination campaign is largely responsible for the Health budget's near $20-million cost overrun in 2009/2010 and the government has increased this year's Health and Social Services budget by just $1 million more over the year previous.

The premier talks about the government's "$100-million-plus” bank account but much of the $135 million listed as net financial resources are liabilities like retirement benefits and the botched $36.3-million asset-backed commercial paper venture tied up in a nine-year restructuring deal.

Mitchell, meanwhile, accuses the premier of using word games in portraying the government's finances, and dismisses the surplus projection altogether.

"When we saw the budget, which is a budget predicting a $2.9-million surplus out a $1 billion, 75 million budget, that that's never going to happen because they never put anything aside in the budget for contingencies” Mitchell told the Star yesterday. "There's no money for any settlement for government employees ... that's simply disingenuous to not budget for something you know is going to happen in the first couple of months.”

The government also hasn't answered how it's going to pay for $2 million in upgrades to the Thomson Centre health facility, says Mitchell, who's skeptical about the current budget for health care spending.

"I don't believe they'll be able to hold health care costs down to the level they predicted because there's no record of them being able to do that,” he said.

The decision to allow the energy corporation and hospital corporation to borrow more than $160 million to pay for hydro upgrades, two new hospitals and a new nursing residence is another bone of contention among both the Liberals and New Democratic Party.

"In all my years in territorial politics, I have never seen a government spend taxpayers' money with so little public scrutiny and oversight,” said Todd Hardy, leader of the NDP's caucus.

"The spending and borrowing is happening at an alarming pace and with very little attention to risk management, cost-benefits studies or needs assessment.”

Watson Lake and Dawson City are slated to get new regional hospitals at a cost of $25 million apiece, and Yukon Hospital Corp. CEO Craig Tuton has said health care delivery costs will double in Watson Lake and could be triple the current rate for Dawson City.

Currently, annual health care delivery in Watson Lake costs $2.2 million and $1.3 million in Dawson City.

New hospitals in those communities will see those figures rise to $4.066 million respectively – a figure provided by Tuton during his testimony before the legislature this sitting.

But Fentie defends both projects because there is a demand for beds in the Yukon, better facilities will help to attract more professionals and borrowing the cash to build them bodes well for taxpayers.

"Simply amortizing out the cost of this so that the taxpayer of today is not burdened with the total cost of what taxpayers well into the future will benefit from,” Fentie said. "There's a distinct difference from that to the debt we're paying off incurred by ... past governments in failed enterprises ... (hospitals and electricity) are not failed enterprises.”

Liberals continued to flog Fentie with the Yukon Energy Corp. scandal, in which the premier was outed by four directors and a former cabinet minister for conducting backroom negotiations with Calgary-based ATCO to privatize the public utility.

Like Sisyphus, the Liberals continued to push for but did not get a public inquiry into the ATCO affair.

The Peel watershed also played large in the Liberals' question period tactics, particularly for newly minted Environment Minister John Edzerza, whose suggestion that First Nations' are interested in development for the region was rebuked by two chiefs.

The entire issue of land planning in the watershed was called into question after it was revealed Fentie ordered the Environment department's submission to the Peel Planning Commission significantly altered.

The government also faced stiff criticism for refusing to call a public inquiry into the December 2008 death of Raymond Silverfox in police custody.

Instead, Justice Minister Marian Horne announced a policing review that failed to satisfy the Silverfox family or opposition parties.

Also on the law and order front, the proposed Civil Forfeiture Act, allowing police and Justice officials to seize cash and property based on suspicion of a crime, not a criminal conviction, was delayed.

However, the government pulled back from ramming the controversial bill through only after increasing pressure from the public, which culminated in a large demonstration in front of the government building May 6.

Legislation that did pass included two supplementary spending bills, the 2010/2011 budget, a feel-good Victims of Crime Act legislating what is already common practice.

This sitting also saw four acts to amend current legislation passed; changes to the Human Rights Act will now allow more than three people to sit on the adjudication panel, the Motor Vehicles Act was amended to pave the way for upgraded drivers' licences and changes to the Labour Mobility Act will provide a raft of trades people and other professionals easier access to the Yukon's labour market.

As for the premier's job, Fentie is not ready to relinquish his post, and remains confident facing a leadership review, a confidence test the leader must face each spring at the Yukon Party's annual convention.

"I'm not worried about it at all. The Yukon Party has a process at every general meeting that speaks to this question; it's called democracy,” Fentie said.

"I was elected in 2006 to serve on behalf of the citizens of this territory to the fall of 2011, so that's my responsibility and obligation to the public as it is to my (party) colleagues.”