Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Next on my list I have Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank the Minister and the staff for being here in

terms of giving us some overview of what the plans are for 2013-14.

I am somewhat optimistic and looking forward to the health centre that will be constructed in Fort Providence. As it may be known, the health centre that is presently there is common to those communities in the North. It is an aging infrastructure that perhaps is beyond its years. The community is looking forward to the construction stage of the health centre. Also, at the same time, I think there is a degree of anticipation in terms of community involvement in terms of the design of the structure and also perhaps just the construction stage as well. With great anticipation, the community looks forward to this project to take shape and form at some point.

While that is a positive new beginning of sorts, there are still some needs in the riding that I represent. For example, in Enterprise they have made a strong case of trying to be independent in terms of having their own water supply and ensuring that they provide that service to their citizens. So I encourage this government to be open, to be receptive, and to work with the leadership there to ensure that at some point that that responsibility in their independence is forged and that there’s a working relationship that’s established with the community of Enterprise.

Similarly for Kakisa as well. They’ve indicated, again, their aspirations to be independent of trucked water service that’s delivered from Hay River. They have again made a strong case in terms of some cost advantages of ensuring that they have their own capacity to have their own water treatment plant in their home community to deliver water services to the citizens of Kakisa.

We’re seeing at this point, within a month or so, the dawning of a reality perhaps we didn’t quite expect, but, I mean, that’s the biggest infrastructure that we’ve ever seen in this part of the North. It’s a symbol of what we can accomplish here in the Northwest Territories, and that’s the bridge. It’s going to be completed. The community, of course, has been part of that whole initiative. We look forward to its completion and its opening, but at the same time, there are initiatives that I feel the community would like to at least be involved with. One of them is I know the marketing of the Deh Cho Bridge would be something that could be maximized in terms of drawing in tourists. It could be perhaps compared to the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco. Not perhaps in that colour, but the point is that the community would likely continue to be involved in terms of operation and maintenance once the bridge is operational and we see 24-hour traffic going through the community.

Those are three major points that I wanted to highlight, but also at the same time there are still some existing opportunities, I think. For one, I think

this government has made great strides in terms of the biomass initiative. I understand that there are some discussions with the community in terms of forest management agreements. There could more likely be sustainable projects that will create not only employment but business opportunities for the district or the region that I serve, especially the communities. So we look forward to that.

Then again, there’s also the potential to maximize on tourism. I think there are some initiatives in the works. We look forward to it, especially at the community level so that it complements the strength of communities, and that’s basically people that have the skills to hunt and fish and trap and know the land that would like to bring tours out into the bush and teach them this in terms of how we live up here in the Northwest Territories.

In the community that I come from, Fort Providence, there have been some issues in regard to the swimming pool that was constructed several years back. It’s unfortunate that it sat this year without being open and we had our kids swimming at the dock. Hopefully at some point there will be a solution arrived at so that the swimming pool becomes operational.

Again, there’s the recent expression of a desire to perhaps look at an emergency runway, because with the dawning of the bridge, with it being in operation, in Kakisa the community has expressed a desire to see if there are measures that could be taken to look at establishing an emergency runway in the community. Not only for the community of Enterprise, but at least on the south side of the bridge where you have at least a contingency to measure if you need to medevac someone, perhaps, if there is an accident and there’s a community response. You need to have a critical link to Yellowknife and one of the ways is by airplane. So the community has proposed to see if there’s a way that that effort can be realized.

Of course, the other matter that I raise at this time is just with the cellular service. I’ve brought that up on several occasions, and again, with the bridge and the 24-hour traffic, it is going to become a necessity. It could be a vital link in terms of having real-time communications to major centres, especially first aid services that could be very critical if perhaps we experience a major traffic accident on the highway and it’s a must at this point. I think if Fort Providence and the area would see an establishment of cellular services, it will bring us one step closer to the concept of ensuring that we have all the major points in the Northwest Territories covered and that we look at at least laying the foundation for a 911 call centre. That could be very possible.

The other point that I wanted to touch on is there are still issues with housing within the constituency in terms of how it is that some empty homes could

still exist in the communities, and how it is that there’s a basic need and some houses sit empty in communities. Of course, people become envious when they see a house that’s just sitting there unoccupied.

There’s a lot of discussion in terms of devolution. I’d like to see perhaps more discussion in terms of decentralization. There’s a real need to ensure that the communities survive and we look at perhaps opportunities and positions being transferred to the communities so we at least spread and share the wealth of all this massive institution that we establish.

So those are just some of the key points that I wanted to highlight in terms of what it is that we’re discussing at this time. Mahsi.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair. My first question, really, if you don’t mind, Madam Chair, I’ll throw that out for the Minister’s wrap-up comments, but I’ve heard a couple of comments about carry-over and we haven’t actually read anything about carry-over. So if I could get clarification on what the carry-over was last year. I’m just looking at the numbers provided today and I see that our main estimates were $124 million last year, actuals or revised are almost double that: $240 million. I’m wondering if much of that – obviously Housing Corp might have 10 or 15 million dollars in there – but it seems like there would be $100 million in carry-over. So I’m not sure what progress has been made on that. So I’d appreciate some clarification on that.

I recognize the Minister has worked hard here to stick to our fiscal strategy, and it’s a matter of competing priorities, and much discussion and debate and weighing of value and so on. Some of my concern over the infrastructure we will be working on is that it’s not part of the budget here today; it’s being left out to the later supps. I’m thinking of, for example, the Inuvik-Tuk highway and the energy infrastructure initiatives. That’s something we seem to be falling into the habit of and I don’t think it’s a good practice. So I just want to make that point.

Another concern is that we are having a lot of infrastructure deficit concerns. I think it’s peaking or profiling the highest point with the Department of Transportation. I think maybe we’re holding the line a bit generally, but Transportation certainly is going in the wrong direction, and the committee, I know, has tried to profile this with Cabinet and we will continue to try. It seems to be a challenge to penetrate that. The barrier is there for communication.

Persistent long-term needs that still are not in the budget. There are a number of these. Certainly for

me, the Detah road remains absent. Again, I had a constituency meeting the other night and residents are still flabbergasted that there is not a plan in place to complete that project. It’s been done with tail ends of other projects and so on. Not a real respectful approach there. That’s still missing.

Stanton, again, I think we’re still behind on that. We are moving and I think it’s well recognized the needs there, but I believe we have really fallen down on that one. Not just this Assembly. I see a major deficit there.

Certainly educational facilities in Yellowknife, Mildred Hall, Sissons, the need for an Aurora Yellowknife Campus. Of course, outside of Yellowknife, the women’s correctional facility, which has been mentioned. Sort of glaring gaps there that have been known for a considerable amount of time still not being addressed.

I am happy to see the energy efficiency upgrades that are being proposed and enabled by the Capital Asset Retrofit Fund. I think that will continue to build and is proving a good value. My compliments to Cabinet for following up on that.

Lastly, I wanted to mention that I see real opportunities for how we design and schedule infrastructure projects so they stimulate local contracts and high labour and local labour and local contract participation from the communities in which they occur. I do see major opportunities. We’ve talked about that at committee and perhaps even as a large group in Caucus. I don’t think we’re doing a good job yet at following up on those opportunities. It does take some work. It means we need to break down projects. We need to design projects with that in mind so that they are appropriately scaled and so on, to the sorts of resources that the community that they’re being built in have. It may be a little bit challenging to do, but I think it’s time for some really comprehensive thinking. The benefits from such an approach would be huge in many, many, many ways that address many of our broad government goals. I continue to push that and look forward to the Minister’s comments.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. General comments. Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Like my colleagues, I am fairly supportive of the projects that are in the capital budget. It’s probably one of our lighter budgets, but I do have some concerns in the area of timelines, in the areas of highways and buildings being constructed and the fact that the government has decided to look at these in the fall time in order to be able to put them into operation in the summertime. Somewhere down the road, no pun intended, these are getting farther and farther down the line so we’re beginning projects in July and August and getting into the rainy seasons in

the August-September time. I do have some concerns with timelines.

I think another thing that some people have mentioned that is not in the budget is the Tuk to Inuvik highway. I think we need to keep moving this project forward and at least assessing, getting the assessment completed and see what the next level of funding requirement is, and at some point deciding how far in we are. It is something that is an integral part of economic development in that region, so we need to continue to move forward on it.

The capital budget also discusses the infrastructure money or the deferred maintenance money. It’s good to see that the numbers are going down but I don’t know if the department really has any kind of plan to get rid of deferred maintenance or is this just an anomaly year where it’s reduced and other years we’re going to increase. My concern with deferred maintenance was brought up last year when I first became an MLA. If it’s deferred maintenance and we just continue to be behind on it, then you might as well just rename it as regular maintenance because now we’re just way behind. Deferred means, in my opinion, that we’re actually going to crawl out of this hole that we’re in, and I don’t know if the government really has a plan to do that.

The other area in the capital budget process is the consultation with the communities, the public consultation. I understand some of these two have links together where there’s capital, where there’s O and M, but I think it is interesting to go to the communities and hear their voices, but I think time-wise it should also include the MLAs. I happened to have the opportunity to go into my community, but most MLAs didn’t.

I think that’s all my comments for right now. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much, Mr. Bouchard. Next I have Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the staff for coming in and listening to all the concerns that Members have today. I do understand that under the certain fiscal restraints, you do the best job that you can throughout the Northwest Territories. Looking at our list of work that needs to be done in the regions and small communities. Even here in Yellowknife with a lot of issues that are facing.

I guess I just want to begin with, up in Inuvik we have a pretty bad situation that we’re facing in terms of infrastructure, kind of going along the same lines as possibly a disaster like what happened in Nahanni Butte and all the infrastructure that had occurred over the summer with the devastating floods that happened there. Up in Inuvik we have a gas situation in which we were

told that the community has less than a year left on natural gas. As some results that came out in the news, Inuvik Gas started running on some synthetic gas, some incidents happened, and as a result for the last two weeks to a month, I’m not sure, they’ve been doing tests around the community, meaning that the community had to go back on natural gas and use up some of its resources in that amount of time, and then when it was safe, certain units, certain areas of the community went back on synthetic gas. The main concern is that in a time when they could have been using synthetic gas they’re using some of our resources from our inventory that’s already been there. We were told before, that was longer. We were told two years, a year and a half. Now we’re down to a year. Now this year we’re not even sure what can happen. In terms of the synthetic gas being used in the community on all the units, which 85 percent of our residents are on natural gas as well as a bunch of business owners, depending on the load demands and if we have any outages in the community, anything like that that might use up some more of our fuel, and in terms of when it does get a lot colder, the synthetic gas, the effectiveness and efficiency of that fuel being able to work efficiently in the homes or in the community without having a heat trace on the houses or insulating the pipes, that can result in a lot of damaged infrastructure in the community. Whether I know a lot of our government buildings are going on synthetic gas to continue the natural gas inventory for the community, but should that happen during this winter when our natural gas, if it should happen to run out and if the synthetic gas is not working efficiently, there’s going to be a lot of buildings that can result in long-term damage. That’s just the scenario that I want to put out there and something that as I listen to concerns from the Members here in the House, that’s something that we need to take into sight as we move forward and possibly look at the funding that’s going into infrastructure.

Another big project that kind of concerned me, and I know concerned some of our contractors back home, was the Inuvik-Tuk highway. I was very glad to hear a lot of support from Members on this side of the House in terms of the Inuvik-Tuk highway being a priority for this 17th Legislative Assembly

and moving forward that should we make a decision when our reports come in that we can start building as soon as possible so that we can get work in Inuvik, we don’t lose months on the building season, and that project, should the Assembly go ahead and approve it, that we can get started right away. I know that’s a concern for Members of our region and my community as well.

Some highlights: I’m really glad to see the funding in terms of deferred maintenance. I know it’s a big list there but we’re putting a dent in it with this money that’s getting spent in there and looking at

some of our infrastructure that really needs the help.

Along those lines we do have some Aurora College units in Inuvik that needed some upgrades and they’re very needed when it comes to families from out of Inuvik coming into the community to attend Aurora College. To put them into a home that’s not very up to code is a concern. We want to have healthy families so they can be educated and become part of society.

Another concern was with devolution. It’s been a discussion that I’ve had ongoing with various members of a bunch of different communities, really, and making sure that this government does have proper infrastructure, whether it’s government building space, housing, so that when we do decentralize a lot of these departments or jobs to the communities and regions, that we have infrastructure in place so that we can start doing the jobs. There’s no excuse to have more jobs here in Yellowknife when today you’ve heard around the table that we need the infrastructure in the communities so that when we do start decentralization, moving jobs and departments into the communities, that it wasn’t overlooked and we discussed it ahead of time. We should definitely be putting a plan in place so that when those jobs do come, that our communities do benefit.

All the other concerns were a lot of concerns that were brought and raised by other Members, but I just wanted to raise and reiterate some of those.

Thank you very much, Mr. Moses. I’d like to now go back for our conclusion of general comments to Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for your indulgence. I’ll try and see if I can finish this. Just a couple more things that I wanted to mention.

It’s been mentioned already, but I think I also need to mention it from my perspective as a resident of Yellowknife, and that’s the first section of Highway No. 3 from Yellowknife to Behchoko. It’s a concern by many residents. The fact that we have to keep working on that highway is a bit of downer, but it needs to be done. I’m glad to see that it’s in the budget, but I am concerned whether or not there’s enough money in the budget to actually finish that project.

Stanton’s been mentioned, as well, and I note from the Minister’s comments that we are doing planning for upgrades required at Stanton Territorial Hospital. That concerns me. I would hope that we are doing planning for a new facility. I will have some questions when we come to that section of the budget, because I’m not sure whether we’re throwing good money after bad if we’re spending money on upgrades at this point.

Lastly, I wanted to just make a comment on the infrastructure contribution under the Department of Education, Culture and Employment which apparently is being made to a non-government organization. I will have some questions to the Minister when we come to that. It seems to be out of character of what we do as a government and I am a little concerned about the process that was used to get that project into the budget. It’s a valid project, but I am concerned that we’re setting a precedent and I will have some questions when we come to that section. That’s all I have.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Any further general comments? If not, I’ll go to Mr. Miltenberger now, if he would like to respond.

Thank you, Madam Chair. What I will do is speak to the broad issues. There were a considerable number of very specific program areas that will be able to be addressed in detail with the Ministers coming to the table with their deputies on health, education, housing, environment, whatever the issue may be, but I will touch on as many of the big items as I can.

In regard to late tendering, once again, Madam Chair, we’re interested in the specifics, but overall, if when you ask the departments and you ask the government, we’ll tell you that we think this has been a distinct improvement, that we have, I think, a fairly high success rate in terms of getting projects out the door a lot sooner than we did with the old process where we were always a year behind and never passed our budget until springtime and sometimes later. We are interested in improving wherever we can, and there are clearly going to be circumstances where we didn’t hit the timelines that we wanted to, so be it highways or housing or whatever the issues are, we would be very interested in having that kind of discussion.

The issue of decentralization and devolution, we are very committed to both those key priorities. We have reviewed with committee and the Members the plan on decentralization. Basically, there are a number of phases. The first phase, as we’ve shown and laid out for you in this current business plan coming before the House here this winter, is to look at opportunities that now exist. Basically the low-hanging fruit, as it were, of some possible moves to those communities that are in a position to readily accept new positions and have the infrastructure to do that. That part of the ongoing work tied to devolution is going to come up with the organizational design and then work collectively with the second and third phases of moving those positions out that are deemed to be appropriate, hopefully, and functioning units so that they can operate effectively outside of Yellowknife.

Tied to that, on a peripheral note, Madam Chair, of course, is the benefit of having the fibre optic line

up and down the valley is that regardless of where we go in the North, then every community, especially larger centres as regional centres will have the same type of infrastructure and IT capacity and capability that Yellowknife has or that some of the southern communities have, which will make it that much easier to, in fact, be able to move positions and programs.

The carry-overs I will ask Mr. Aumond just to touch on briefly to give you some of the numbers that we have with us here today in terms of percentages going back over the years. Madam Chair, if I could ask for your indulgence.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Aumond.

Thank you. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In regard to the concern about deferred maintenance, what has happened over the years, at least that I’ve been in this Legislature and yourself, Madam Chair, is whenever there were fiscal pressures and reductions in the past, capital was cut, often because it was the least painful. It didn’t require layoffs and you could hit some of the targets and protect programs and services.

In addition, just a general financial condition that we operate in, for example, since 2008 with the recession, money has been a lot tighter. So will we ever get completely out of deferred maintenance? I would suggest it’s going to be a multi-year process to do that. It’s a large number and we will continue to work at it. In addition, to look at the other new infrastructure that is there. But it’s a commitment that we cannot give up on. Otherwise, deferred maintenance then becomes critical crisis intervention if it’s deferred too long. We need to approach all these different areas on an ongoing basis.

To speak to that issue, we are going to invest the money we can and we do our reviews and we prioritize and we try to keep all these processes going forward, and it will be enhanced once we start adding some money in ’14-15 going forward.

The Tuk-Inuvik highway, if I could just lay out the chronology and process as we know it and as we’ve agreed to. There is a current request coming to this House for the final $2 million to conclude the environmental engineering detailed work that we need to be able to pull together a package by this winter that we can put on the table to the federal government that will lay out the results of all the work in terms of the feasibility, the firmer estimate, the timelines, and to have the discussions with the federal government about the money that they do have and is there requirement for further federal money. The Premier has already raised the issue, as he’s indicated, with the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister is aware of the concern and indicated that he is waiting, as well, for that information and that we are engaged with him on the number.

The money we have booked is for all this preparatory work, this front-end work, so that we can have enough information to come back to this House, as we committed to last winter, that when we have that work then we will come back to the House and when we know what the number is, the amount of money, what our actual commitment is to the Tuk-Inuvik highway, then we have a project that we can put on the table with cost-shared dollars and make a final determination. That there would be no deal signed, there would be no commitments made except by going through that process to fully involve this Legislature. We have not reached that point yet. There is no approved project, and while we have put money aside in our fiscal framework, there is no formal approved Tuk-Inuvik project except for all the preliminary technical work, engineering work, environmental work that has to be done to determine the road design, route, costs, availability of granular material and those types of things.

The Members are aware that we’ve booked this money and once we have that decision in this House, then it will absolutely appear as a formally approved project with a dollar figure attached to it. That will be the decision of this Legislature to do that.

Madam Chair, as I quickly go through my list, there was one concern raised about population changes, and we know that there are migration patterns, there is a lot of migration from smaller communities to the larger centres and into Yellowknife. While we do not do all our budgeting on a per capita basis, we do try to track and recognize those pressures. Magnet communities, for example, as has been raised by some of the Members, in particular, the

largest one being Yellowknife. We are clearly factoring that criteria in as well.

The Member for Sahtu talked about partnerships. In his statement today he indicated, for example, of Colville Lake, the community wanted to get the government’s foot off their neck. As similar sentiment, I think, that every level of government has with the senior levels of government that they may have above them as we, for example, negotiate our way to devolution to take over decision-making. Are we interested in partnerships and what examples are there? Yes, we are interested in partnerships. I think what’s being proposed where there’s cost-shared dollars. The Tuk-Inuvik highway is an example. The fibre optic line that we are going to be building down the valley is going to be a classic example of a northern, hopefully, northern financed, owned and operated major piece of infrastructure that will involve all the Aboriginal governments and the territorial government in giving benefit to every man, woman and child almost without exception up and down the valley.

Another one, we talked about warehousing and partnering up in the community with Housing and Public Works and Services. I have had discussions with Deline, for example, interested in looking at all their infrastructure as well. In a smaller community it makes very good sense to have those discussions. Meet with band councils, community governments to see how we can put our scarce, small amounts of resources together and share 25, 10 cent, 50 cent dollars as opposed to doing it all ourselves. We believe that there are plenty of opportunities. In addition, the $28 million that we flow to communities, the new Ndilo that is going to be under review, will all provide an opportunity to enhance that type of relationship.

I am just quickly going through my list, if you will bear with me. There are many individual program concerns. The Minister of HR will be coming here right behind us, as well, followed by the Minister of MACA to have those discussions.

Mr. Bromley indicated a broad issue of the design and scheduling of projects for maximum community benefit. I agree. As we look at devolution, tight monies, self-government, the things we just talked about with Member Yakeleya, I think there is an opportunity for that type of policy discussion. We have been working for years; 17, going on 18 years I have been here, we have been trying to fine-tune and improve the capital process the whole time. It has been based on those types of discussions.

The other point I would like to make is in terms of the pressures, the red flag projects. While they are not all for 2014-15, as we go forward and start the planning, as soon as we conclude this process and the budget process for the main estimates, the work on the capital for 2014-15 is already underway,

predicated on the assumption of the additional funds and the red flag projects which are those projects that have gone through the rigorous scrutiny and are determined to be next in line will be there for consideration, including the projects like the women’s correctional centre. Stanton is basically a megaproject. They are all geared towards both the upgrades and renovations to end up at the end of the day of that cycle to have a fully refurbished acute care facility in the Northwest Territories. It has been in the works for many years, as Mr. Bromley has pointed out. There is going to be a considerable amount of dollars attached to that. We have, once again, money booked in anticipation of that to get this project well started. I believe we have an opportunity for that type of policy discussion.

The gas situation in Inuvik is a unique, critical issue that has drawn together the private sector, the community and the government. We have invested, and are going to continue to invest, considerable time and resources collectively to make sure we manage our way through this. There are the immediate pressures of the upcoming winter. There are the longer term pressures of a more guaranteed energy source, be it liquid natural gas, that gives the opportunity to tie into the potential of six or so megawatts of wind power as Diavik did. We can use it to offset some of our costs. That work has yet to be done.

In regard to a concern raised by the Member for Hay River North, the consultation with communities, we agree that next year we are going to make sure we do our timing in such a way that a number of things are improved on; three to be exact. There are some concerns about the information that the community members have raised that they would like more of. We will work out very clearly in advance with the MLAs to make sure that we do this in a way that MLAs are available to accompany us and to be part of the process. We are going to work earlier with the association, the communities, to make sure we get representatives from all the small communities to come into the regional centres so they are there to take advantage of that opportunity to discuss with us about the budget consultation.

That, I believe, covers broadly some of the government-wide issues. As I indicated, the Ministers and the deputies will be here to discuss in as much detail as committee likes, or requests the specific program areas. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Does the committee agree to move on to detail?

Okay. We will turn, please, in your document to page 2-2, Department of Human Resources. I will refer your

attention, please, to page 2.2, which we will stand down for now. We will move on to the first department, which is on page 2-4, activity summary, Human Resources, strategy and policy, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $300,000.

Okay. Thank you. We turn now to the summary page, department summary, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $300,000 for the Department of Human Resources. Agreed?

Okay. Does the committee agree that consideration of this department is concluded? Ms. Bisaro.

I just wondered if we were going to have witnesses to answer our questions, if we have them.