Thank you very much, Madam Chair. I’m pleased to review the infrastructure capital estimates for next year, but I do want to share a few concerns.

I know that we moved to doing our infrastructure for the next fiscal year early, but I’m still finding that in my region we’re tendering out capital projects in July and August. The reason that we did it almost six months earlier is so that it would avoid those circumstances. When that happens, especially with highway chipsealing or construction, then we end up constructing in the fall season. I don’t think that’s how we should be utilizing all the time that we’ve given ourselves there. I don’t know if the Minister wants to answer why that practice is still happening. I think even with housing, I was just recently in Fort Liard, as well, and they’re starting the base construction of a home. It behooves me to see why we’re still doing that practice. Maybe the Finance Minister can find out more, or track it, or maybe government isn’t aware of it. I think it’s becoming more of a practice again that we’re tendering out stuff later and later in the year and it impacts the construction season if they’re doing it wet, when it’s raining and snowing. That’s one of my concerns there.

The other one is, of course, I’m speaking about Fort Liard, Highway No. 7 has always been quite high on my agenda. I do have to say that because we’ve had an exceptionally dry year, the Liard Highway has been very good this year. I’m sure that the tourism numbers will be up. I haven’t had confirmation of that. That’s something that we always want to see in the long term. Like I said, I’ve always said that Mr. Ted Grant, who owns Simpson Air, has always been a strong advocate of tourism in the Northwest Territories, and he always advises me that he does get calls from Europe about tourists that want to drive on Highway No. 7. They ask him the conditions and he has to be honest with them. In the years when it’s bad, he has to tell them it’s bad and don’t send people up Highway No. 7. I continue to advocate that we still need more resources for Highway No. 7. I will note that certainly there are contributions towards Highway No. 7 that I’m pleased to see in the capital estimates; however, I still make the case that it needs more and more resources as we move along.

As well as the chipsealing. Another goal of mine is to chipseal all the way from Providence junction to Fort Simpson. I’d like to see that work done. Also, the residents of Fort Liard often feel that they’re forgotten in the corner of the Northwest Territories, but the reality is that the road is their life there as well. They actually do a lot of work and travel between Fort Liard and the BC border. I’ve always advocated that that’s got to be chipsealed. It was chipsealed at one point, and unfortunately, it deteriorated within months. With the investments that we’ve had over the past seven years, I think we’ve had a good 20 or 22 kilometres reconstructed. We still need another 200 to be reconstructed. We’ve got a long ways to go there. The good sections are reconstructed. I’d certainly like to urge the department to chipseal that and make life a little bit easier. I think that’s one of our roles as legislators, is to make life a little bit easier for all our residents. We always strive towards that.

Other capital needs in my region, I’ve got many small communities and every time I visit them or I bring Ministers there, they constantly raise the need for schools. In the community like Trout Lake, their original school burned down and they’re actually in the community hall. I’ve always made that case. The department refuses to acknowledge that, but the original school had burned down. Residents of Trout Lake have always said it is a temporary thing and put them in the community hall, but now they’re actually calling that the Charles Tetcho School, but it actually wasn’t designed as a school. So I’ll continue to advocate for them. Many of our large schools have been, you know, we completed one in Inuvik. Great for Inuvik. That’s a huge capital expenditure. In our small communities it won’t be

that expensive to build. I think it’s time to turn our attention to the small communities in that regard.

Also, while we’re on general comments, I just want to touch a bit on devolution. I think that when it comes to capital planning and devolution, is that many of our small communities… Like Fort Simpson is the regional centre and I’ve been telling everybody that my role as MLA, when we’re looking at devolution, is to see if we can get some of those jobs over to the community, but we’re limited by the amount of office space, the amount of – I don’t want to call it staff housing, but housing for staff. I think government really has to turn their attention about how do we develop that infrastructure so that we can benefit from devolution. Because decentralization should be part of devolution, I believe. So we have to focus and see if we can transfer some of those jobs to the regions and to the communities. Just an overall statement. I think that’s what we should be focusing on in the future.

As well, I think in my Member’s statement here today, like in the community of Nahanni Butte, who wants to really pay serious attention about relocating a community like that will be expensive. That’s a long-term plan and I believe we should start that planning now. It’s not about moving the whole community today or tomorrow, but we should address that reality, that the community was built in a flood plain and it just may happen again. It might not be 50 years, it might be next year, because climate change is upon us. We’ve really have to look at that.

With that, I thank you for the opportunity for those opening comments. If I can get some certainty about why we’re still tendering out the capital projects in July/August.