This is page numbers 4141 - 4178 of the Hansard for the 16th Assembly, 4th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was housing.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Transportation. I think the Minister has, obviously, some explaining to do to both Members of the House and the public when it was just a couple of weeks ago that the Minister stood up in this House and replied to some questions that I had for him at the time, stating that the new design on the Deh Cho Bridge would be less expensive to construct and they were still under the impression that the project could get completed on budget even though

there was a delay of one year. Here we are two weeks later and the Minister is stating now that the project is going to cost $182 million.

There still is no, in my view, firm design. There still is no signed contract with the new contractor. I am just wondering how the Minister can explain that he can put a number out there like $182 million with all these moving parts still in existence. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Minister of Transportation

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; two weeks ago we were very confident that we had the makings of a deal that was going to fall within the target and goal of what we had set as a budget. Since then, there have been more negotiations with the contractor that we are talking about. In fact, I should mention that who we are negotiating with right now, today, yesterday had brought back new numbers. We have all the moving parts, as the Member has indicated, together, including lost revenue because of the delay in the construction schedule of one year, the deferral of the design, of course, and things of that nature and outstanding claims that we have to settle. It is summed up to a number, an excess of what we budgeted by $15 million. Thank you.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Mr. Speaker, in the press release that the government has issued this morning, they also talk about a new project management team. I would like to ask the Minister what is the future of the former project management team on the Deh Cho Bridge Project. Thank you.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Minister of Transportation

Mr. Speaker, as a result of a number of discussions for the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, we felt that we needed to bring in a new team to provide project management on this job. We have since agreed and notified the people that were on the project management team that we will be bringing in a new company and new players to fill those roles. That has been accepted. We are now in the process of having discussions, how to do the transition and continue to make sure that we have a smooth transition as we move forward. Thank you.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Mr. Speaker, I am just wondering why it has gotten to this stage, why something wasn’t done further in the past. We should have done something about this a long time ago. I would like to ask the Minister, is it going to cost the Government of the Northwest Territories anything to remove the players from the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and that former project management team? Are we going to be paying anything for that? Thank you.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Minister of Transportation

Mr. Speaker, I can’t predict what will happen in the future, but as of

now, our agreement is to terminate the services after transition period, after certain tasks are completed, which will happen in the next little while. The Member is correct; there was concern and he’s raised it in this House that there was concern over how the project was being managed. We also had concerns some time ago. We felt that we needed to wait and see how things unfolded. We also needed a pause in construction so that we can start the next phase before we sat down and had those discussions with the Bridge Corporation. This is what we have done. It has resulted in a new project management team. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

David Ramsay

David Ramsay Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess ultimately we are going to be paying the price for the poor performance of that project management team. I would like to ask the Minister today whether or not the Government of the Northwest Territories is going to have any legal recourse with that former project management team on the increased costs and the failure to deliver this project, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Minister of Transportation

Mr. Speaker, I think all the players involved feel they have a recourse in terms of legal challenges. We are no different. I am assuming that we will see the fallout as the dust settles on this project. At this point, we are focussed on trying to get the bridge completed. We are really in a compressed time frame to get that done. We are, as I have stated, negotiating right now with a number of the players, the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, the lenders and also a company that we hope is not going to be influenced by our discussion here today, but we are very close to concluding those discussions. We feel that these numbers are solid. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regards to my Member’s statement, one thing we continue to see is have and have-not communities in the Northwest Territories, especially the small and remote communities, which were the reason for a lot of communities not being able to take advantage of the stimulus funding in regards to Building Canada funds. The reason that we get this is because they have substantial deficits or they are unable to identify matching funds.

Mr. Speaker, I, for one, feel that this government should reach out to those communities and try to find ways to ensure that they are able to receive federal capital dollars through a workable relationship with this government.

Mr. Speaker, in the previous government, there was a community infrastructure fund which was put forward by this government. About $30 million was given to all communities in the Northwest Territories based on a formula of base plus funding. I would like to ask the Deputy Premier, why is this government not looking at a system that is fair, transparent and that everybody can benefit when it comes to federal funding?

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Deputy Premier, Mr. Miltenberger.

Michael Miltenberger

Michael Miltenberger Deputy Premier

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That deals with a specific program area under the mandate of the Minister of Public Works and Services. I want to defer that question to him.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Minister of Public Works and Services, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Minister of Public Works and Services

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; a lot of communities have felt that they are really challenged to have input in some of the stimulus money that came in very short order to this government. The program was quite compressed from a seven-year period. With very limited notice, we were required to put in two years’ worth of projects.

The Member has also referenced a Community Capacity Fund that was provided to the communities on a formula basis. It works quite well. That was the first area that we wanted to discuss with the federal government. The Minister of MACA did bring that concept up of formula funding for Building Canada funding and also stimulus program funding. That kind of arrangement was rejected by the federal government. They felt it wasn’t something they wanted to do. We had to resolve to asking each community to come forward, to bring projects forward that were either on our government capital plan or on the community capital plan or projects that they were thinking about and had somewhat formulated and priced out. That is the rationale of how we ended up. Thank you.

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Mr. Speaker, one of the main reasons is because the communities either had substantial deficits, which tells me that they are in trouble. I think that we have to find a way with working with those communities that are in trouble, finding a way that we can match funds with them or have funds. Right now what I see going on with the government is that they have surplus funds in certain projects that they are going to bring forward and they are going to subsidize certain projects which are presently on the books. For me, that is not fair. I would like to know, what is this government doing to work with those communities that have a deficit situation so that they can take advantage of these federal infrastructure funds?

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Minister of Public Works and Services

Mr. Speaker, once again the Member is correct. There are a number of communities that were in a deficit situation historically for long periods of time. Given our previous method of allocating dollars, I am assuming that this is changing. I get the sense from my discussions, at least, that communities are better prepared as a result of the New Deal funding and their larger formula funding dollars that are being invested in the communities. However, that is going to take time. In this case, not everybody was ready to put a project forward.

Although we have probably the biggest capital budget in our government’s history over the last year, this year and possibly next year, there are still communities that need assistance. I don’t speak for MACA, but MACA has committed to working with these communities. They have people in the different jurisdictions helping them. Of course, we have to recognize that planning and making decisions on their own or for their own communities is not something that everybody has been doing up to now. It is relatively new. It is going to take some adjustment. I hope that is going to happen fairly quickly. Thank you.

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Thank you. I’d like to ask the Minister if he could give me a breakdown of exactly which communities received these federal dollars, what size the communities are and out of the 33 communities in the Northwest Territories, which ones weren’t able to take advantage of these programs. Can I have that in writing? Thank you.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Minister of Public Works and Services

Thank you. I’ll have to commit for the Minister of MACA, but there is I think roughly around 47 projects right across the Northwest Territories with the Building Canada funding and the stimulus funding and he’s listening so he should know, but we’ll commit, he’ll commit or I’ll commit for him, to providing that information to the Member. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

David Krutko

David Krutko Mackenzie Delta

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that it’s time that this government did an assessment of this program and federal programs and see exactly who is benefiting from them and also who is losing out on these programs simply because they’re having some financial problems or they don’t have the capacity to do it, because I think from small communities that is one of the core problems we see in our communities, is they don’t have capacity, they don’t have the human resources, they can’t take advantage of federal programs. So as a government I’d like to request from the Minister if they can commit to looking at that scenario and see exactly what we can do better to improve the programs next time around for all communities.

Michael McLeod

Michael McLeod Minister of Public Works and Services

Thank you. What the Member is speaking about doesn’t only challenge

the communities, it challenges our government when there is a huge injection of capital into our jurisdiction with a very short time frame to spend it. It really challenges us. I’ve conveyed it, the Minister of MACA has conveyed those concerns to the federal government, that we need a stable long-term agreement that would flow capital dollars so we can have everybody take part and have a piece of the dollars invested in their areas and in the areas that they want to see invested. The Minister of MACA has informed me that they’ve also put some money aside in their budgets to do just as the Member is requesting, to help the communities so that they’re prepared to move forward with other capital dollars that may come up free. Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Paul Delorey

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Wendy Bisaro

Wendy Bisaro Frame Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education. When we reviewed the Department of Education budget I asked a number of questions of the Minister and his officials with regard to inclusive schooling and how we fund inclusive schooling to our education authorities and I have a few more questions for him following up on my Member’s statement.

The Minister was presented with evidence from Yellowknife Education District No. 1 about a year ago, of a high number of severe special needs students within that district. I’d like to ask the Minister what his response was to the district officials at that time. Thank you.