Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Aumond.

Yes, that’s fine.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. All right, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. A motion is on the floor. The motion is being circulated.

All right, the motion has been distributed. The motion is in order. To the motion, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a question. The motion reads that we’re only

deferring what’s on pages 4-4 and 4-5, not the whole department. Is that correct?

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Yes, that’s correct at this time.

We’ll move on to the next activity on page 4-7. Public Works and Services, Activity Summary, Technology Service Centre, Infrastructure Investment Summary, Total Infrastructure Investment Summary: $7.075 million. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This, by anybody’s standards, sounds like a lot of money: $7 million. I was wondering if the Minister could tell us how our expenditures on information technology capital compares with other jurisdictions of a similar size. Even to people out there in the public, even to us in here, this sounds like a lot of money. Are we over resourced when it comes to information technology services and infrastructure?

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. At the presentation that we provided to committee, we pointed out that the Gardner Group, which is a world leader in IT research and analytics, has determined that governments on average spend about 5 per cent of their overall budget on IMIS and IT. The GNWT, based on our budget, is below that, at between 4 and 4.4 per cent.

Mr. Chairman, this is a public forum for the public to hear the answers to the questions. I don’t need to be reminded by Mr. Miltenberger of what the committee received a report on. Unfortunately, the public wasn’t in our committee meeting. They would not have been privy to the answers that were provided. So if Mr. Miltenberger is trying to make me look stupid and my questions look stupid because “as I know” the committee received a briefing, yes, I know the committee received a briefing. I am trying to ask questions and get answers for the benefit of the people who might actually be listening out there in the public who care that we as a government need to spend another $7 million on information technology. That’s why I’m asking the questions. So thank you very much, Mr. Miltenberger. I’m aware we had a briefing. I don’t need to be reminded of that, and I don’t want my question diminished or essentially mocked because we already had a briefing.

Mr. Chairman, there was no intent to mock or diminish. It’s an important question. The percentage that the Gardner Group,

which is a world leader, had is 5.4 per cent of overall budgets. The GNWT is between 4 per cent and 4.4 per cent of its overall budget.

I’d like to thank the Minister for that non-editorialized answer. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. I don’t hear a question. I’ll go to the next on the list, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also have raised this and I raise it again here. I recognize that we’re within the general guidelines of other jurisdictions and so on, but the large capital projects don’t seem to fall into that formula of coming up with a percentage. Those are mostly operational dollars. We know that we have, relatively, a very high cost for infrastructure compared to other jurisdictions.

Another perspective on this is that because we have a modest size of population and availability of these very specialized talents, we often have to contract outside of the Northwest Territories for these services, whereas most jurisdictions are able to find that sort of expertise in house, if you will, Mr. Chair.

These are important perspectives, and I think they are relevant here. We have a similar complexity of data to manage and so on, as we learned from our briefing, as other jurisdictions, but we have much smaller numbers and sample sizes of things to deal with. This is all by way of stressing that I’m looking for some real critical assessments of what we spend on the technology/data management end of things. I’ve raised with the staff, as well as with the Minister, that I’m very interested in their input on where efficiencies can be had and so on.

Again, we’re at 4.5 percent; we’re sort of in the ballpark for operations, but I would bet that our infrastructure costs are much greater than other jurisdictions, and we’re sending our dollars away from the Northwest Territories to deal with this stuff. That’s why it’s quite a serious financial issue. I’d welcome any additional comments the Minister might have on these perspectives.

Thank you. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Member raises some good points. Our infrastructure costs are due to distance, isolation and transportation issues that are often higher than other jurisdictions. In terms of the IT side and information services, we are, as well, coping with highly dispersed communities and that type of infrastructure with those costs. It is, as well, that the life cycle time, as the Member is aware, of IT systems is significantly less than a lot of the

buildings that we invest money in. So the renewal time is shorter. We have equal distances and all the other challenges that we have with our other infrastructure costs, plus it’s also an area where it is very specialized and hard to recruit, which requires a reliance often on contractors.

I recognize the points the Minister has raised. Often these dollars are so large that I wonder. A lot of data management now gets outsourced to other countries, even other continents. I would ask that the Minister always look for opportunities to hire people locally and deal with some of this information manually. Given that we often are dealing with relatively modest sample sizes and the numbers to actually deal with it, we perhaps don’t need these Cadillac systems for all of those data management needs.

Mr. Chairman, it’s a point that we try to keep in mind. We strip down these proposals to make them as realistic and basic as possible, recognizing the significant costs. I appreciate the Member’s concern that there are skilled Northerners we can put to work in these areas. We’re definitely looking for those. A lot of these systems we are engaged with have proprietary information and specially trained folks. It’s a constant struggle to try to do those things, but they are things we try to keep in mind.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. We’re on page 4-7, Public Works and Services, Activity Summary, Technology Service Centre, Infrastructure Investment Summary, Total Infrastructure Investment. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to the 2008–2009 Main Estimates the schedule that was laid out at that time, which was approved, states a new computer data centre for Yellowknife. In 2009–2010 it’s $1.3 million; in 2010–2011, $6 million; in future years, $5.7 million. Is that the schedule that is still being contemplated for this project?