Does the committee agree that we have concluded the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment?

With that, I would like to thank the Minister and his witnesses. Sergeant-at-Arms, could you escort the witnesses out?

At this time I would like to ask the Minister of Public Works and Services if he has any opening remarks. Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present the Department of Public Works and Services main estimates for the fiscal year 2010-2011.

The main estimates propose a department operations and maintenance budget for 2010-2011 of $92.3 million, which represents a 65.3 percent increase in O and M funding over 2009-2010. Strategic and corporate initiatives like the consolidation of maintenance and utilities, and the

one-time costs budgeted for the demolition of the Chief Albert Wright School in Tulita and the Deh Cho Hall in Fort Simpson account for $31.9 million of the O and M funding increases in 2010-2011. In addition, the department has an infrastructure investment plan of $27.3 million for 2010-2011.

Public Works and Services is an essential partner in the achievement of government-wide goals while achieving the best value for government, communities, business and residents. The department achieves this through support and leadership in the areas of:

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asset

management

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information and communication technology

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procurement

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records

management

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community fuel provision

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electrical and mechanical safety.

The department also manages an additional $187 million for projects and services on behalf of its clients through revolving funds, chargebacks and capital transfers. These funds are used to provide:

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computer and data communications for

government offices;

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fuel services for residents, businesses, and the NWT Power Corporation in 20 communities; and

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deliver capital infrastructure for our clients.

PWS is working to improve how we do business. In response to direction given by the 16th Legislative

Assembly, and specifically the stated priority of achieving effective and efficient government, PWS has led the charge in the way the GNWT approaches how we plan for and acquire public infrastructure. Under the guidance and direction of the Ministerial Sub-committee for Infrastructure, implementation of the revisions to the capital planning process will continue in 2010-2011. Examples of changes include:

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planning

studies,

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peer reviews of large capital projects,

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value analysis of large capital projects, and

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development of standardized designs.

Funding is in place in 2010-2011 to complete the planning, design, and transition activities required to implement shared services procurement models for the GNWT at the beginning of 2011-2012. Through this initiative, PWS will eliminate duplication and unnecessary processes and will standardize services in a way that is compliant with GNWT policies. The establishment of this shared services unit will allow departments to focus on their core business rather than on these administrative and support service functions.

In 2010-2011, Public Works sand Services will lead a change in the way the GNWT manages facility maintenance under the Consolidation of Maintenance Strategic Initiative. As of April 1, 2010, the maintenance of most GNWT-owned buildings will be consolidated in Public Works and Services.

This will result in a standardized approach to the operation and preventative maintenance of government building infrastructure. This approach will allow the GNWT to more adequately address the growing deficit in deferred maintenance and will provide a consistent level of preventative maintenance for GNWT building assets. At this time work is currently underway within Public Works and Services to ensure detailed preventative maintenance plans and work schedules are in place for 2010-2011.

In order to support the department’s enhanced responsibilities under the Consolidation of Maintenance Initiative, PWS will establish indeterminate settlement maintainer positions in the communities of Ulukhaktok, Sachs Harbour, Wrigley, Fort Resolution, Behchoko, and Tulita, as well as one new electrician position in the community of Inuvik. These new permanent positions will allow PWS to recruit qualified individuals and better manage the maintenance activities and availability of resources at the community level, while having more control over the cost and quality of the services provided. It will also allow Public Works and Services to be more proactive in completing its mandate of building maintenance and better support the department in complying with code-mandated checks and repairs and completing deferred maintenance requirements.

Safe, reliable infrastructure is essential for the delivery of GNWT programs and services. As such, PWS will continue to implement programs in one of the department’s key areas of focus: Facility Risk Management and Safety. To date, PWS has completed 675 facility condition assessments and over $470 million in deferred maintenance costs have been identified. The Risk Management and Deferred Maintenance Program has identified $5 million in capital and $3 million in O and M funding for 2010-2011. This funding will deal with the highest priorities identified in the latest GNWT asset assessments.

In 2010-2011, responsibility and current funding for utility expenses for GNWT-owned buildings will be transferred from program departments and consolidated with Public Works and Services. This will allow for accurate tracking of utility expenses government-wide and feed into current energy conservation projects. PWS is proposing to capture the savings identified through its energy conservation initiatives and establish funding that

would be used to offset the cost of delivering future energy conservation projects.

The department has initiated several energy conservation projects to reduce energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in the GNWT. Through the Capital Asset Retrofit Fund, PWS will invest $3.5 million into greenhouse gas and energy efficiency improvements to GNWT infrastructure in 2010-2011.

Some examples of the work planned for 2010-2011 include:

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energy efficient lighting retrofits

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water saving washroom fixture upgrades

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heating and ventilations system replacements and upgrades

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building control system upgrades

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building envelope upgrades.

The projected annual energy savings for energy conservation initiatives completed to date and those currently planned and in progress are projected to be $2 million and 9,000 tonnes of greenhouse gasses per year.

The projected energy savings for retrofit projects planned for 2010-2011 are $325,500 and 268 tonnes of greenhouse gasses per year.

In conjunction with the consolidation and tracking of utilities, PWS proposes to reinvest the savings generated from these investments to sustain the Capital Asset Retrofit Fund in the future.

In addition to the facilities owned and maintained by the GNWT, PWS currently manages a lease portfolio valued at $18.6 million with 60 leases across the Territory. PWS reviews this portfolio regularly to ensure that occupied space meets the program needs of our client. In the area of leased accommodations, the program review office in the Department of Executive made a number of recommendations during its review of general purpose office space and it concluded the GNWT could achieve considerable long-term savings through investment in new owed office space in Yellowknife. In response to those recommendations, PWS will be seeking approval to complete a planning study for rebalancing the portfolio of GNWT-owned and leased office space in Yellowknife.

Through the Technology Service Centre, the department provides information technology support and services to meet the business objectives of the GNWT. More and more, the ability of the government to provide services to NWT residents is dependent upon the availability of secure and reliable information and communication systems. To that end, the TSC will be adding an infrastructure support analyst position as part of the implementation of the Security Strategy.

Finally, I would like to mention the provision of essential fuel services. Through the Petroleum Products Revolving Fund, Public Works and Services funds the provision of heating fuel and gasoline in communities where a commercial operation does not exist. Through the Fuel Management Services Agreement, the petroleum products division provides the Northwest Territories Power Corporation with all of its fuel requirements and manages and operates its tank farms in 20 communities across the NWT. Under this agreement, PPD maintains safe tank farms in many remote locations, as well as contracting with and training local fuel delivery agents to provide necessary services. These agents have an important function in their communities, and Public Works and Services works with them to carry out this important service.

In response to the challenge of fluctuating oil prices and increased volatility in the market, the petroleum products division is focused on exploring strategic partnerships and ways to stabilize the cost of fuel products for people in communities served by the program.

To effectively reduce the cost of fuel transportation, PPD will continue to work with its marine carriers to maximize the amount of fuel that is transported to the GNWT by bulk tanker via the “over the top” route.

The marine freight costs that were avoided in the summer of 2009 by the use of the “over the top” route versus the traditional Mackenzie River route are estimated to have exceeded $1.8 million, savings that are passed along to the consumers and to NTPC in the form of reduced fuel prices.

Public Works and Services continues to be responsive to its many clients and strives to provide a high quality service to departments and the people of the NWT. The budget that we are reviewing today will contribute to achieving this objective.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening remarks. I would be happy to answer any questions Members may have. Thank you. Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. With that, I’d like to ask if you’ll be bringing in witnesses. Mr. Minister.

I do, Mr. Chairman.

Does committee agree the Minister brings in his witnesses?

Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witnesses in.

Mr. Minister, for the record, could you introduce your witnesses.

Mr. Chairman, on my left I have Paul Guy, the acting deputy minister of Public Works and Services. I also have Laurie Gault, the director of TSC. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Welcome, witnesses. General comments. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks for the opportunity to offer some general comments here. Going through the Minister’s remarks, it’s quite an unusual budget with the changes that are taking place this year. The first thing he mentioned was the $32 million for demolition of the school and the Deh Cho Hall in Simpson. To me, I’m very upset about this. This is extremely poor management. There’s no reason these should be occurring together in the same fiscal year. They should have been spread over. These are really predictable sorts of costs. We know what the extra costs we’re dealing with that other things are causing today. So I think we need a real tune-up in how we deal with major costs like this and start spreading them out and bringing those into our management regime so it’s routine rather than on a last-minute basis.

On the other hand, I think the things we’re doing with starting to capture some of the savings from the energy work we’re doing, I like the idea of bringing all the utilities into one place. Public Works and Services will be clearly in charge of maintenance and the opportunities that brings for standardizing and bringing an energy savings approach with some possible additional savings there and so on. So I want to tip my hat to the planning that has gone into that and moving on that opportunity.

The Minister mentioned settlement maintainer positions that are going to be established, indeterminate positions, and I’d like to be sure that those positions will receive training in energy efficiency and, ideally, opportunities for renewable energy. For example, solar hot water heating and so on, things that we know are quite viable in our communities with off-the-shelf technology. The same would go for the electrician in Inuvik, so we can start taking advantage of those opportunities.

The long-term savings to investment and new owned office space in Yellowknife I think, again, we are looking for those sorts of opportunities and I understand that a large opportunity has been identified there. So I’m looking forward to a discussion on that and, overall, I’m positive on getting that done. I think there will be some sensitivity needed to how that gets carried out, sensitivity to the marketplace and so on and I think we’ll be visiting more about that.

The petroleum products division and a revolving fund, well, servicing the Power Corporation and the residents and so on, I’ve said before it should be

the pellets in the petroleum products division. We need to be switching. To be subsidizing substance that is doing such harm to our land, our future, seems to me somehow to be kind of crazy and we know in fact the Minister outlined the savings that we’ve had with the biomass projects, for example. It’s just completely crazy. So here’s a division that’s got lots of expertise, probably spending lots on maintaining tank farms and cleaning up spills and so on. It could be enjoying those savings and helping out the marketplace by providing a market and I think that should be extended to the Power Corporation, as well, or looking at better ways of doing things.

I want to keep us moving here so I think I’ll just leave it at that and bring out any other specifics during the detail. I appreciate this opportunity again. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Next I have Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to comment on a couple of things and the Minister will probably correct some of the figures, because I don’t think it’s going to take $32 million to take down two schools, and I’ll wait for the opportunity for him to correct that.

But in terms of the Deh Cho Hall in the community of Fort Simpson, it’s an economic opportunity. That’s the way I see it. I certainly support this line item in the budget. It’s an economic development opportunity for the community. I’ve always said that we’re one of the depressed regions today. There’s work and the majority of it is government and I believe that an opportunity like demolishing the old Deh Cho Hall will create lots of employment for the community and an economic opportunity for the LKFN First Nations, who I support in seeking and negotiating a contract for this once this line item is approved.

As well, in the opening comments the Minister mentioned about the return of community maintenance persons in our regions and I think that’s something that’s much needed. I know that we cannot do all the communities. However, the ones that are listed in the budget this year is a step forward in maintaining the sustainability and the operating needs of the communities and many of the small communities do depend on somebody skilled in all areas of maintenance to assist them, because often it’s probably a benefit to government, otherwise there will be extraordinary costs in bringing in plumbers, pipefitters, welders for minor repair items. I can certainly see the case for as and when contracts sending up people to the smaller communities, but if they’re just going there to change out a doorknob or else do five minutes of welding or 10 minutes of plumbing, then I’m sure the contractor gets just as frustrated, because in our regions our contractors are spread really thin

because there’s not enough work for three or four different specialized contractors and usually enough for one in the whole region and that person gets very busy as well.

So I just wanted to make those few comments, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. General comments. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to say to the Minister that people in my community that I reside in were happy that there were some discussions going on regarding the demolition of the Chief Albert Wright School. It’s been a situation that we finally have seen some resolution to it and I certainly support the department on this item in the budget here to see that we can finally move on it.

Also, the issue of the property of where the school is situated right now has a lot of interest by community members for an agreement that was possibly negotiated some time ago with the municipality, the Hamlet of Tulita, in terms of land swapping and how they are going to use that facility. However, they are excited that we’re finally getting some attention to it and that this building would be demolished and it would be taken down. So I wanted to say that.

The other one is that I want to say to the Minister on the work going forward is, I guess I want to say in terms of the creativity in the issue of the settlement maintainer, it’s a good issue. I think that’s something that’s much needed in all the small communities. It makes a lot of sense, so I’m really happy to see it in the budget for this department. So that I wanted to say to the Minister.

I wanted to also let the Minister know that the issue on the energy conservation projects, and I was hoping that we might get some in terms of the assets that they own. There is a facility that we as a government, as a department, has an old garage that’s in Tulita. It was built, I think, the way it looks, it looks like it was built in the 1500s or 1600s, but I could be wrong, but it’s built in 1960. But it’s so old and really it looks in pretty bad shape. We have some really good people working in the communities and they’re subjected to working in this type of building here. So I wanted to see if that would get some attention sometime within this government here and see if we could have a new building in Tulita. There are other buildings that are constructed that DPW has that are brought up to standard. So this one here, I think it needs some really good attention. So I’m looking forward to seeing if the Minister could put something like that together in the plans in terms of the assets that they have in Tulita.

Mr. Chair, the petroleum products division, the Minister is well aware of the issue in Tulita. Again, I speak to...and he’s sent me some notes and I

appreciate the information from the Minister. I’m looking forward to seeing where that production for upgrading the facility for the operator is going to get some attention and in terms of the operation and the work that this operator has done on behalf of this government. I think that he’s looking forward... Actually, I’m looking forward to seeing something get done. It’s scary sometimes when you go into those old buildings and there are some things that shouldn’t even be looked at safety wise, Labour Code wise. Things like that we should really be more aware of on how we put our contractors in place to deliver fuel.

Overall I’m really quite pleased with the budget that the department has put before us. I’ll leave the rest to details.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Next on my list is Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll keep my comments brief as well. I think one of the few consolidated efforts that this government has put forth over the last several years that I agree with is the consolidation of utilities. I would be curious about the placement of positions as a result of the shift of $30 million-some-odd dollars in utilities going from the various departments to Public Works creating quite an unusual increase in the budget of 65 percent. However, that’s recognizing that’s probably going to be a good thing with commodities such as fuel, when one department can administer, tender, and bring all these costs together. It will probably be an opportunity to reduce costs in small communities such as Lutselk’e.

I’m pleased with the Minister going back to settlement maintainer positions in some of the communities. I felt that it was good to have that position go back into Fort Resolution. I often stand up in the House and indicate how little presence the GNWT has in these communities and how high or how low, I guess it is, the employment rates in these communities are compared to our larger communities where we have quite a large GNWT presence. The position of settlement maintainer is still needed in Lutselk’e. It may not have as many buildings as some of the other communities where there are transfers that occurred. However, it’s a remote community and the only way to get tradesmen in there is usually by air. I think that’s how all the tradesmen travel into a community. We see tradesmen coming and it’s okay for the economy of the community to have workers come in to do things like maintaining the boiler at the school. I know that there were some problems there this year. I think it came really close to the boiler... Well, there were some problems with the boiler. I don’t know the details but I happened to be in the community at that time when it was spewing out a bunch of black smoke and they had a tradesman

come into the community to work on that. So maybe a settlement maintainer position should be looked at also in Lutselk’e. Again, I’m pleased that one went into Fort Resolution.

On another note, I think deferred maintenance, the assessments to determine the amount of maintenance that we didn’t do on all the buildings over the years is very positive. We don’t have the money to address all the deferred maintenance costs, I’m sure. At this rate it’s going to take us 90 years. But, in any event, it’s a good thing that we’re starting to address. It gives the government an opportunity to address the more serious issues created as a result of deferred maintenance. I’m seeing the benefits of this program in both communities, in both schools, and that’s very positive.

The rest of the questions I may have for the Minister as we get into the detail. That’s all I have for now.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Next on my list is Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple areas I want to talk to today. The first one, of course, is Public Works taking back the utilities to track them. I support this initiative. I think consolidation in the sense of one billing process, one group organizing this and being able to track it and monitor it, and certainly hopefully someday understand it will be a useful step I think for us to get a grip on what we are using as far as utilities are concerned.

The only concern I have with this particular issue -- and I like to think that because it’s at the beginning we will certainly have a position to strive to avoid this -- is what are we going to do with this. I hope there is a plan of attack on how departments will be somewhat accountable for the amount that they spend and certainly in the context of we’ll work to strive to spend less on things like utilities.

In the past we’ve heard nothing but, oh, it was an unforeseeable year and the expense just grows and grows and grows with no understanding of why. And furthermore, I’ve heard, through many people over the years, that a lot of departments don’t really know or understand how much they’re really spending as far as utilities go. I understand the fact that lights always need to be on in schools and hospitals and whatnot, but I think people need to understand where they’re spending their money. Once you understand that, you can also get a sense of how you can spend your money wisely. I think that has to be a critical component to amalgamating the utilities under one roof. I certainly think it probably was a visionary sort of step for some and others may not have wanted to give up the control, but I understand that there’s probably a management headache attributed to it trying to figure out what goes where. I do think a coordinated

role in this particular case will be very useful for a government our size to help, as I said, manage this expense.

Another area I’d kind of like to touch base on, and I’m glad the Minister brought someone from TSC here today. I look for hopefully some insight in this particular area. Although it’s not a new trend, it’s certainly becoming a constant one that’s been growing by leaps and bounds. It is the use of Skype. I hear about this quite regularly now in the city of Yellowknife, that many people are talking long distance through the use of Skype. I can only wonder if this will provide a benefit to the territorial government, whether you’re living and working in a small community and you need to talk to headquarters or vice versa where headquarters needs to talk to someone in one of the small communities. Does this provide an opportunity for us to do business better and, certainly, smarter?

People who use it tell me that their phone bill has gone down dramatically. The government is always trying to find new ways that make a lot of sense to save money. From folks I’ve talked to who use this process, do save a lot of money when they speak to friends, relatives, and whatnot across the country and across the world. Perhaps this can be an opportunity the department could look into if they have not yet. If they have at this time, I’d certainly like to hear more about it, because I’m not aware of this being used within the government system so far. Everything I’ve heard about being able to use Skype is it’s a great investment and people have saved a lot of money using that process. I don’t necessarily believe it’s for everyone and certainly the capacity level on our lines that would carry the Web to every community may not facilitate these types of endeavours, but it all starts with two phones, not one, to start making change, and obviously we could start from there. I’d certainly like to hear if there’s optimism to give something like that a try.

At this time the rest of the issues raised within the Minister’s opening comments, I certainly support the work being done on Deh Cho Hall. I know that one very well. I fully understand the accounting for it. Removal of the Tulita school, Chief Albert Wright. I certainly support the efforts by my colleagues about getting more community people working in their community. I stand supportive of the statements so far here and, as I mentioned earlier, I wouldn’t mind hearing just a little more on those two particular areas. Thank you very kindly.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Committee, general comments. Not hearing any requests for more comments, Mr. McLeod, response.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thanks to all the Members for their comments and the issues they’ve brought forward.

The first one being, of course, the discussion around some of the demolition projects we have going. We have a budget of $3.2 million to take down two fairly large buildings; buildings that we’re still paying for the safety issues on them. That’s a big reason to move forward in fairly short order to eliminate any of the public safety concerns. There are also contaminants in some of these facilities that we have to make sure we deal with. There is still a certain cost to have all those things ongoing for the long term while we have new buildings that have replaced them. There has been a lot of interest from both communities to do salvage type operations and we need to have that discussion, but it’s also an opportunity for many of the community members to have some employment as a result of this.

I also appreciate the comments on consolidation of the utilities. I certainly appreciate the support. It will allow us to better track and provide a better service across the North as we take on this responsibility.

With the building maintainers we also think that’s something that’s important. We’ve had a lot of challenges over the years to ensure some of the communities, not all of the communities, but to have some of the services provided to the communities. A lot of times it’s very expensive for our contractors to fly in from the larger centres, especially if the maintenance problem is very small. We’ve had, also, problems trying to recruit contractors in some of these small communities. We feel that having a permanent presence in the communities that we’ve mentioned is something that we need to do. We will be working towards improving the skill levels of the people we hire. We’re anticipating that they will have a certain level of skills to start with and start providing training and building operations that will help enhance their abilities and provide a quality service to all the communities in terms of government facilities.

The office space in Yellowknife is something that’s been recommended for us to move on. It’s certainly a mechanism that would allow us to save some money. It’s also an opportunity for us to balance our portfolio. Right now we have in some of the jurisdictions in the Northwest Territories an imbalance of having more leases or a very large amount of leases versus buildings that we own. In this case we anticipate that the savings over the life of this facility will be in excess of $100 million.

We also recognize that we have a responsibility in the area of public petroleum projects to continue moving towards finding alternate ways to provide support. We need to be able to switch to something that will provide the same level of service at a cheaper cost and with less impact to the environment. We will continue to explore that.

We have, with this department, converted a number of buildings. There are five buildings so far that

we’ve converted over to biomass. We are working on eight other buildings that are under development right now for conversion and we’d like to do eight more in the next little while. So there’s quite a bit being done there.

The other thing that was raised by Mr. Yakeleya is the facility that is being considered for demolition in his community. We certainly agree that there is a huge demand for the property that both the Chief Albert Wright building, or the school that’s in his community, for the land that it sits on. Same for the Deh Cho Hall. It’s on prime property that needs to be opened up and we recognize that.

I don’t agree with Mr. Yakeleya that his Tulita garage was built in the 1600s. I would agree that it is old and it needs some consideration. As we move forward with our new maintenance positions in the communities, we also have to consider the support in terms of facilities and offices and shops for them to work out of. So we are developing a plan to deal with that. So there are going to be a number of facilities that are going to require upgrades. There are a number of them that are going to require retrofits and a number that are going to be outright replaced. So once we have that done, we’d be very pleased to share that with the Members.

The Tulita tank farm, we recognize there’s a facility there that is requiring some consideration for replacement. We are looking at the whole project, all of the tank farm, and it’s something that we want to look at replacing. So that will deal with the issue that Mr. Yakeleya has raised. Right now we’re at the planning study stage, so we should be able to have that down the road as we move forward.

We also, of course, have to agree with Mr. Beaulieu when he’s pointed out that there are a number of good reasons for consolidating the utilities and it will allow us to reduce costs. We recognize that. It will certainly allow us to have more control as we now can start tracking what facilities are ineffective or utilizing more energy than they should. So it’s certainly something that we look forward to doing. I think it’s something that having a centralized system such as what we’re proposing will help us enhance our responsibilities where the community is government.

We also, I think, had talked some time ago, during the last budget process, about our plans to continue to look at different communities for maintenance personnel. Lutselk'e will be one that we’ll consider down the road. They had a position historically and that position was removed. We have to, for the next go-round, start identifying if there’s still a need in some communities. We already recognize that there are some that we’ll probably need to start moving on. That assessment will be made down the road.

Mr. Chairman, we’re also glad to hear that Mr. Hawkins supports consolidation of the utilities. We will be tracking, as he’s raised concerns about doing things better, and it will allow us to track every asset and will allow us to report to the communities or to the people that are operating the asset. We still have to point out, though, that each department has a responsibility in this area for managing their energy, but we will be able to tell if there’s a huge use or over more than what we think was required. So tracking and monitoring will be a lot better with better control.

On the issue of the TSC that was raised by Mr. Hawkins, we certainly agree. We have to stay on top of the technology that’s coming out and it’s changing fairly rapidly. The use of Skype is something that we need to take a look at. We are looking at new contracts in the next while and we have to look at all options, so that will be a consideration as we move forward to that stage. So we will be considering that. That’s all I have, Mr. Chairman, Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Committee, that concludes general comments.