Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Ministers and their staff for being with us this afternoon. I know a lot of this has probably already been covered, but I just wanted to highlight a few things while I’ve got the floor.
Obviously I’m a big supporter of the Deferred Maintenance Program. I think the Department of Public Works and Services has done a good job, the government has done a good job in that area, and I’d like to say that I appreciate that.
Also, the new capital planning process is not so new anymore. I think this is the third year and I do believe it was the right decision. Money has been getting out the door. I’m interested to see if, indeed, the carryovers will continue to trend downwards. I guess the less capital money we have to spend in years to come, obviously the carryovers are going to come down too. Hopefully, as a percentage, we’ll be able to tell if indeed that’s making a difference.
If I could, missing from the capital plan, I know the Minister just mentioned the comprehensive education facility plan that was done here in Yellowknife for schools and educational facilities in the capital. I share the concerns that other Members have. I don’t know why nothing is in this capital plan to address that plan that was done. Something should be here. The work was done, it was presented to MLAs over a year ago, or close to a year ago, so I’m surprised that nothing has materialized in the plan.
There is going to be a need for a dedicated campus for Aurora College here in Yellowknife, that’s for sure. It’s interesting to see how the government can look at office space requirements in a city like Yellowknife and figure out in short order that the government for future government operations is going to save millions and millions of dollars if it builds its own dedicated office facility. But then when it comes to an education facility like a college campus, like a dedicated court facility, we just don’t
seem to have the same willpower or horsepower or resources to look at that in any meaningful way. My belief is the government -- and I’m thinking long-term here, 20 or 30 years out -- will have tremendously more resources if we make the investment today and get away from especially specialized areas.
That courthouse, I’m not sure how many times the government has paid for that courthouse facility over and over again. It’s very specialized. Highly specialized. We need to again address the fact that the Northwest Territories does not have a dedicated stand-alone court facility. It’s located in an office building downtown that’s been cut up and hacked up and renovated numerous times over. It’s still inadequate, it remains inadequate, and we have to address that at some point in time in an effort to save ourselves money.
The same can be said for the college campus. I think we should own a dedicated college campus here in Yellowknife. Why wouldn’t we? We’re spending millions of dollars on lease costs in an office building that isn’t conducive to a college campus or environment. The lease is coming up. We have to get a plan to get out of there and build a dedicated facility.
I know I’ve talked about the Fire Centre in Fort Smith as well and I’ll mention that again. Again, that’s a highly specialized area. It will cost us a lot of money to lease the facility in Fort Smith. We should be looking at building a facility in Fort Smith dedicated to that fire centre. We really can’t afford not to be building specialized, especially specialized areas of government operation instead of paying exorbitant lease costs for years and years and years. We did it for the office space requirements in Yellowknife and I think we should be taking a look at presenting business cases for a courthouse, for a college campus, for the Fort Smith Fire Centre and things like that. I look forward to that work getting done.
An increased presence in Ottawa. I know many Members have talked about transportation infrastructure with the Transportation Ministers there and just how important federal dollars are going to be for our future transportation infrastructure requirements. We certainly need an increased presence in Ottawa. I’m glad to see that the government has come forward with a federal engagement strategy. It’s a little bit too late, but better late than never. We’ve got to get on with this, because we can’t go it alone when it comes to transportation infrastructure. We’ve got a lot of opportunity out there with the P3 initiative from the seasonal overland route. There are also possibilities there for the Mackenzie Valley Highway. We’ve got to pursue those things at any and every opportunity that we can. We have to find out where that money is and pursue it.
The other thing I did want to get into was the bypass road here in Yellowknife. Again, this will be the last time I mention this. I wanted to thank the government for that fine piece of infrastructure and the role that it played in allowing the City of Yellowknife to partner with the federal government in building that road. Again, it’s partnerships that I think are going to get us someplace when it comes to developing the infrastructure here in the Northwest Territories. The federal dollars might dry up a little bit but we have to be seeking them out at every opportunity.
I think that’s about all I had. I know it’s getting close to two o’clock and you’ll probably recognize the clock here shortly. I want to thank you, gentlemen. I think we are certainly on the right path when it comes to capital planning. Obviously it’s a balancing act, a juggling act, and not everybody is going to get everything they want. We just have to keep trying to do the best that we can.