Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I also want to thank the Member for her comments and some of the feedback she’s provided on her take of the benefits and the positive results we’re seeing and some of the changes we’ve made in the last little while.
Of course, there are concerns that all of us recognize up front, including carryovers. It’s always been an issue and historically we’ve seen that number grow. I’m pleased to report that this coming year we would expect that amount is going to be a lot less than we’ve seen. We’re still crunching the numbers. We don’t have all the numbers in, but as of today we know that the percentages are down quite a bit. For example, over the last couple of years we’ve seen carryovers from Public Works and Services of up to 35 percent and we would expect that number this year to be down to 20 percent. As the year goes on and we are more comfortable with what the carryovers will be, we’ll provide that information to committee.
We are certainly focused on providing alternate energy and trying to be green as a government. This government has moved considerably in the last while and there are a lot of projects on the go. That includes projects here in Yellowknife. The new office building that we’re contemplating and proposing here is something we would expect to have biomass heating and have the ability to tie other offices, other buildings that are in proximity to it. We are working on a new hospital in Hay River and that facility also would be something that would be considered for biomass heating. All our new facilities as part of the design and as part of the planning process would be reviewed and see how we can include alternate energy or more energy efficient systems in this part of the project.
Again, we’d have to defer the comments on NWT Housing Corporation for review of their policies to their Minister for when that Minister is up for review.
The YK school plan is something we think will be a very valuable document, however, the document was not completed at the time when we put our capital budget together. It will certainly be an
instrument or a tool that we’ll use next year as we develop our capital budget and it will be a guide that will be very useful for us.
The infrastructure funds that are earmarked for municipalities are something that has a review. I believe it’s biannual and that’s something that I would expect is coming up fairly shortly.
I’ll defer the comments on the Deh Cho Bridge and its impact on overall fiscal resources of our government in the area of capital to my colleague Mr. Miltenberger.
I want to point out, though, finally, that the O and M costs that the Member has raised is a concern and is included as part of the planning studies. Maybe it’s not communicated as well as could be. We have heard from the committee that this is a concern and we have flagged it so that it will be included in next year’s budgets. It will be clearly demonstrated for next year in the substantiation documents so that everybody will know what the O and M is and it will be very obvious and up front.