Thank you. Members, at this time I’d like to draw your attention to the visitors gallery to a former Member and Premier of this Assembly and now president of the IRC, Nellie Cournoyea, and the mayor of Inuvik, Mr. Denny Rodgers. Welcome.

---Applause

Very timely. We were just discussing the budget allocation for the Inuvik-Tuk highway. Good timing. Thank you. Anything further? Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the responses there. I just want to confirm the Minister of Finance’s information was that we were just shy of $1 billion. I suspect that we were under $1 billion at division and we adopted this $500 million at that time. If that’s the case, then obviously our budget has gone up probably much greater than 30 percent, with no change in our debt limit. Maybe I’ll stop there. Briefly, if the Minister could just confirm that I got that right.

Thank you. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In point of fact, we do have and will be going into our last year of a $75 million bump-up that we got because of the Deh Cho Bridge impacts. The budget shortly after division was very close to $1 billion. I’d have to commit or ask Mr. Aumond if he knows the detail of the $500 million as a loan limit, but that’s been there, to my recollection, for a good number of years. I’d ask Mr. Aumond. He’s indicated that he doesn’t have that information with him, so I’ll commit to get that information for the committee.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Anything further, Mr. Bromley?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I did note that Mr. Neudorf mentioned that the $1 million to complete the required planning was part of the resources for this year’s work on completing the

planning for the Inuvik-Tuk all-weather road and that in the past we have reconfigured some of the resources, like, for the gravel access road and so on. I’m wondering what other resources proposed for the fiscal year under discussion are being proposed and where they will be coming from.

As we pursue the work on our borrowing limit, we’re also pursuing our discussions with the federal government about the $150 million. We’re trying to find out what the opportunities are in terms of how that money can flow and can their money flow before it first, as we sort ourselves out. Those type of questions have not yet been finalized. I would once again ask Mr. Neudorf if he has any further detail in addition to our own resources other than the million dollars.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Neudorf.

Thank you, Mr. Neudorf. Anything further, Mr. Bromley?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I suppose one last one is, I’m again very appreciative of the Capital Asset Retrofit Fund program but it is quite a comedown, quite a modest effort compared to the extraordinary $15 million a year that we enjoyed for energy projects in the 16

th Assembly as

made available through careful planning and hard work, I’m sure. Is there a plan to seek those sorts of resources as our fiscal situation hopefully improves early in the term here?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The actual money that was put towards renovating and updating and retrofitting government facilities was substantially less than the $15 million a year overall that we tried to put to the various alternative energy priorities. If you look at the actual number, which Mr. Guy could probably provide, the savings that we are realizing and the payback times are actually quite significant. The payback times are short. The savings for the

amount of money we’ve spent I think are fairly good. If we get an adjustment to our borrowing limit, then we will be collectively, as I’ve indicated in other forums, having a collective discussion about the amount of room and the type of resources that we want to be able to collectively put to bear if we get the ability to borrow for strategic infrastructure requirements.

I would suggest that we’ve made a very significant commitment in the last Assembly of almost $60 million carrying over to this year. That is one area where there is a lot of momentum that we would hate to lose. I would suggest that, yes, we would have that discussion, should we be successful.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Next on the list for general comments is Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a number of comments. I’m kind of jumping around here but I’ll lay them out. I don’t have a lot of questions but I do have a lot of comments.

I’d like to also speak to the Inuvik-Tuk highway. I appreciate that it is a priority of this government and that we are putting some funding into it, and I know that the federal government has allocated some $150 million towards the project. Knowing that our debt limit is what it is and knowing the amount of borrowing – I should say our borrowing limit, not our debt limit – is where it is in the amount of borrowing that we currently have on the books and that we have to account for, it leaves us very little room to put any serious money into the Inuvik-Tuk highway project. I know that there has been some suggestion that we may be able to access the federal funding first and then when our borrowing limit and the gap of our borrowing and the limit has been eased somewhat, we could maybe access our own funds later on. That would be a question to the Minister: Is that something that the department is considering? Is it something that’s feasible that we could use the federal money, say, in the first two or three years, and then use our own money after that, so that would give us a little breathing room and enable us to move ahead on that project?

I am disappointed. I haven’t totally examined the budget yet, but I believe there’s very limited money in here for schools. I think the Minister says $11 million for school replacements and renovations. My belief is that it probably is $11 million going towards projects which are already in the works. The Inuvik school is not yet finished and I can’t remember what other schools we have on the go. There are several school projects which are already in progress and which need to be finished. I don’t believe there is any new money in the budget to address the needs of Yellowknife schools. I speak specifically of Sissons School and Mildred Hall School here in Yellowknife. There’s no funding to do the necessary…to finish the renovations at

Mildred Hall and to do the much-needed renovations at Sissons School. I recognize that we don’t have a lot of room to add new projects in this particular budget year, but I’d like to serve notice that for sure Sissons is a school which is desperately in need of renovations and I’d like to see it on the capital plan, at least see it as a projected project within the life of this Assembly, because the school really shouldn’t be waiting much longer than it already has.

I am pleased to see the emphasis on small capital in the budget. I don’t know if the number is larger than it was in the previous capital budget, but I think it probably has increased somewhat and I think that’s a good thing. Particularly in the area of health, I remember from the previous Assembly that Health specifically spoke to us about the need for investment in small capital. They have huge amounts of technology that needs to be upgraded and updated all the time. I would hope that the amount of money that we have in small capital is going to address some of those urgent needs of the Health department.

I want to also commend whoever developed our document. The substantiation sheets are, in my mind, wonderful. They’re extremely thorough. I can’t say that I’ve read every one of them, but certainly if I had a question about a project, I could go to that substantiation sheet for that project and it pretty much told me everything I needed to know. I’d like to commend the Minister and staff for changing our process a little bit and for providing that background information to Members, because it certainly makes it easier to figure out what things we’re talking about and the background on them and gives us a lot more information.

I have a bit of a concern with ongoing needs in our communities. I know the Minister, in his opening remarks, mentioned there’s $28 million to fund community government, and I think he said earlier on in his statement that we are providing a stable source of funding for community governments. I agree that it’s stable, but I can’t agree that $28 million is addressing the needs of our community governments. I don’t know the amount but I know that the infrastructure needs of our community governments are huge, and I believe the funding we provide them and that they can get even through gas tax money and any other sources of funding other than GNWT funds only addresses some 60 percent of their community infrastructure needs. In my mind, we need to be well aware of the fact that, yes, we’re giving them a stable source of funding, and perhaps this year there’s no increase but we have to seriously consider increasing the amount of money we give to our communities for infrastructure, and not in five years’ time but in one year’s time.

I’m really pleased to see that there is a planning study for the Stanton Territorial Hospital. That’s a project which has been talked about for probably 10 years and a little more positively in the last couple of years, but there’s been no action on it and it’s a facility, as well, that desperately needs renovations and upgrading. It needs to be brought into the 21

st Century, so to speak. I’m hoping that the planning will be done with all haste and that we can actually get some construction and design money into the budget next year and get started on this project. I’m not quite sure how we’re going to be able to fund it. The Minister has said previously that it’s a $400 million project. That may be a little high, but it’s still going to be many millions of dollars. But with the planning study done, we know what we need in order to get the project off the ground, and I think we can then start to try and find creative ways to fund it; creative but legal, by the way.

I am disappointed that there’s no money for Highway No. 7. I have to support my colleague Mr. Menicoche, in that Highway No. 7 is one of our highways which is desperately in need of some major revisions. We’ve covered off three or four highways, I think, in the budget, but Highway No. 7 is quite obviously missing any funding in this particular year.

Again, as with Mr. Bromley, I am really pleased to see the emphasis on deferred maintenance. I think it’s done us really well in the last three or four years where we have put an emphasis on deferred maintenance. I think it’s proven to be successful and I’m glad to see that we’re not moving away from that particular tack that we are going to continue to do that.

I guess the last thing that I am a little bit concerned about is carry-overs. It’s not mentioned in the Minister’s remarks, I don’t believe. We have had carry-overs every year in the last Assembly that I was here. Certainly the amount went down somewhat and, actually, I’m not surprised that we have carry-overs, considering the size of our capital budget. In 2011-12 it was huge. We took advantage of the federal stimulus money and it benefitted us greatly. But I guess I would like to know from the Minister whether or not we can anticipate that the carry-overs from this budget year that we’re considering now, 2012-13, whether or not those carry-overs are going to be somewhat less than what we’ve experienced over the last four years. I think we’ve gone down from 35 or so percent down to maybe 25 percent of our projects are carry-overs, but I would hope with a smaller budget dollar amount we would be able to reduce our carry-overs after 2012-13 to something a lot lower than 25 percent.

I think that’s it, Mr. Chair. I don’t have anything else on my list. Thanks very much.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we indicated in a previous response, we are talking to the federal government about their commitment to the road, $150 million, and when it could flow and how it would be sequenced to see if we could, in fact, put their money to work as soon as we can while we sort our own circumstances out.

I’ve noted the comments on the schools in YK, but clearly, with a $75 million budget, there are far more needs than we have resources

The small cap budget hasn’t increased, but Health has made the case that there should be a separate amount of money put aside for their very specific and ongoing needs.

I would point out, in terms of your concern about the ongoing community needs, that they do have significant needs, but up until this budget their money that we committed to them has grown at a rate greater than all other government programming. But we, as well, share the concern that we have to continue to be supportive of them.

There is $1.6 million left in carry-over dollars, apparently, for Highway No. 7. Clearly not enough and it’s one of the items that’s on our red flag list. As our budget stays at these modest numbers, the amount of carry-overs will, I think, absolutely drop. The bigger the budget, the more challenge.

Once again, I appreciate the Member’s concerns but over the years with the changes we’ve made to the capital planning processes, we have, as well, seen a progressive drop on a percentage basis even with a $1.1 billion budget over the last three years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Minister has presented us, I guess, an eye opener in terms of what our needs are in the Northwest Territories and what type of funding we are going to look at for the next year. We understand that our needs are higher than the revenue that’s coming into the Northwest Territories. We are very happy that the federal government is contributing to the Mackenzie Valley Highway, through their recent announcement of working on a portion north of Inuvik and they already started the Tuk to Inuvik road. We, as government, are supporting this process through allocating $1 million to complete the planning for that section. The work is starting. I think we need to continue to support that aspect of the Mackenzie Valley Highway just as much as when the rest of the regions are going to be going through their process of putting a proposal together once the PDRs are completed and environmental assessments are done when we need to secure

money for the construction of the road up the valley to meet the Dempster. So we look for that type of support in the future.

I hope that there are some provisions with the upcoming appropriation act and under small capital planning to finally get the needs of the Colville Lake people met. Ms. Bisaro talks about bringing health into the 21

st Century. I think Colville Lake is still in

the 16

th Century with the honey bucket system. This

is utterly ridiculous in this day and age, where small capital funding could simply install proper washroom facilities at a public facility such as our health centre in one of our small communities. Why is it taking so long? I’ve been here eight years and I plan to be here another four more years. I hope to goodness that by the time I’m finished this 17

th Assembly, Colville Lake will have a running facility like any other facility in the Northwest Territories.

For eight years I have been hearing nothing but excuses, excuses and excuses why we can’t simply replace the honey bucket system at the health centre. They have their good reasons and they have their good excuses, but that doesn’t do any good to my people in Colville Lake who, today, have to use that honey bucket system. That is not very good.

You could spend millions of dollars on other things that the government seems to move pretty quickly on. They build millions of dollars of infrastructure, but I don’t understand why it is taking so long to take the honey bucket out of the health centre and put proper washroom facilities in there.

I ask the Cabinet and Ministers to think about this and see what we can do for Colville Lake. I ask that they could consider that in their planning. Their money is being divvied up amongst the departments as to their funding. I ask this on behalf of my people in Colville Lake. I think it can get done. We could put $182 million into our bridge. I think we can put a simple little washroom in the health centre in Colville Lake.

At the same time, I want to speak about the honey buckets in our public school in Colville Lake. There are about 53 to 56 kids in that education system in two separate buildings. There is no proper air ventilation in the school. It stinks in there when you go in there sometimes. That is what kids have to go through. They have no other choice but to go to school, because they are like anybody in the Northwest Territories and the families support their children getting the proper education. But, Mr. Chair, could you imagine children sitting there and smelling their own sewage? That is not very good. I was in there last week. One of the portable units that they have for the school has 25 kids in there.

Again, I would ask the government to look at doing something with those facilities. Make it happen. I want to ask the government on behalf of the people, on behalf of the parents that send their kids

to the school and we encourage them to go to school and to have a proper facility. It is unbelievable; in the same washroom area they also have a program where they are teaching children preventative measures on the dental hygiene care. I am going to raise it again until I know for sure that they have a proper running toilet, sink and that is taken care of with proper ventilation. I ask that under the capital plans and I will ask more questions later on.

I am just looking at the capital estimates. I know that the Minister talked about the bleak picture that we have in front of us and the great needs that are needed in the Northwest Territories. I am hoping that the Minister has good meetings with Finance Canada on some of the bigger issues, the debt wall, the borrowing and help us with our finances.

Colville Lake is also asking – and I agree with them – and some of my colleagues have spoken; they also are looking forward to seeing where in the planning we could look at a new school in Colville Lake. They are asking if it could be brought to the attention of the government to start putting it into the planning books for Colville Lake. It is overcrowded. If you ever watched the program, Mr. Chair, called “Hoarders” on TLC, they have junk everywhere, stuff in people’s houses. Well, the Colville Lake School is like that. It is so small and crammed up and they are trying to teach a proper Slavey class or the young grades class. They have books and stuff piled up. It is unbelievable. Those teachers should be given a medal for teaching in those types of conditions, with a honey bucket and the overcrowding. There are four grades in one room like this. There are paper wall partitions where they are trying to teach. Kids are just kids. They make a lot of noise. It is very hard to teach in those conditions. That is the reality of our school in Colville Lake. They really need a new school. Offer a facility to educate them. They need a new building. I am going to keep raising this to see where the government can work with us.

Colville Lake wants to work with you. Tell us what kinds of numbers you guys need to work with. They are independent, proud people and they will work with you. You give them a number. They will help you. They want the best for the kids just like any of us. We have friends and family ourselves who have children in their own classrooms. They want the best. They are no different than you and I on educating their kids. That is what I want to say to this government. I look forward to having further discussions as we go through this. Mahsi cho.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I can recollect back over the years when Colville Lake… They moved out to Colville Lake because they wanted a traditional community

with minimal trappings of civilization. Clearly, as we have been there over the years, there has been a growing concern about the fact of having some of those amenities. We are working on that.

There is, in fact – and I will ask Mr. Guy to confirm this – money and work being set up to deal with the actual infrastructure requirements to improve on the honey bucket system and to put in those types of amenities, but there is also another piece that has to be done before those can be made operational, and that is the lagoon and the disposal part of the process.

The issue of a new school, of course, will have to go into the capital planning process, keeping in mind at this juncture we are going to be looking at $75 million a year for the next number of years unless there is some type of change to our borrowing limit. Once again, if there is a bump-up to that, then we will have another discussion. There will be enormous pent up demand that we know is already there, red flag projects and projects that are already on the list as the Member knows, like the long-term care facility in Norman Wells.

So I will ask Mr. Guy maybe if he could speak to some of the particulars in regard to the Member’s impassioned plea about the schools and the health centre facilities. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Guy.