Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Monday, October 22, 2012, I will move the following

motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Kam Lake, that the Northwest Territories Electoral Boundaries Commission, 2012, is hereby established;

And further, that the Legislative Assembly recommends to the Commissioner of the Northwest Territories that the Honourable Shannon Smallwood be appointed chairperson, and Mr. Charles Furlong and Mr. Ian McCrea be appointed members of the Northwest Territories Electoral Boundaries Commission, 2012.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Mr. Bouchard.

Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Monday, October 22, 2012, I will move the following motion: Now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Monfwi, that the following guidelines be set out for the NWT Electoral Boundaries Commission, 2012:

1. The commission shall review the existing

electoral districts using the most recent and accurate census and other population data available;

2.

In keeping with Canadian constitutional conventions and the notion of effective representation, the commission shall make recommendations to achieve relative parity between electoral districts while balancing community of interest considerations;

3. For greater certainty, relative parody means that

the percentage variation between the number of persons in a riding and the average mean should be within plus or minus 25 percent, except where special circumstances warrant exceptional deviation;

4. The commission shall recommend how electoral

boundaries should be drawn if the Legislative Assembly comprises (a) 18 members, or (b) 19 members, or (c) 21 members;

5. The commission shall prepare an interim report

with proposed electoral district boundaries for review by the public and discussion at public hearings;

6. The commission shall establish a website or

other publicly accessible mechanism(s), in addition to public hearings, to receive submissions on the existing and/or proposed boundaries;

7. All submissions to the commission shall be

considered public documents;

8. Simultaneous translation of official languages

shall be available at public hearings where the use of an official language in a particular community or region is sizable enough to warrant the employ of translation services;

9. If the commission is not in a position to

accomplish its mandate within the existing budget allocated, it may return to the Legislative Assembly for additional funds;

10. The final report of the commission, complete

with recommendations, shall be submitted in English and in French to the Speaker and the Clerk of the Legislative Assembly no later than seven months after the Commission is struck; and

11.

The Chief Electoral Officer shall serve as secretary to the commission.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Item 16, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 17, motions. Item 18, first reading of bills. Item 19, second reading of bills. Item 20, consideration in Committee of Whole of bills and other matters: Tabled Document 64-17(3), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2013-2014, with Mrs. Groenewegen in the chair.

Okay, I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What’s the wish of the committee? Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The committee wishes to consider Tabled Document 64-17(3), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2013-2014.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Is committee agreed?

Thank you. We will commence with that after a short break.

---SHORT RECESS

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. The Capital Estimates 2013-2014 is the tabled document before us today in Committee of the Whole. I would like to ask Minister Miltenberger if he would like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Agreed?

Thank you. I’ll ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.

Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. At the witness table we have deputy ministers Mike Aumond, Finance; and Mr. Paul Guy, Public Works and Services.

I’m here to present the 2013-14 Capital Estimates of the Government of the Northwest Territories.

The estimates outline appropriations for government and community infrastructure investments of $123 million for the 2013-14 fiscal year. This amount includes $75 million for GNWT capital projects, $12 million for projects funded through the federal government’s Building Canada Plan, $28 million for contributions towards community infrastructure projects, and $8 million to continue the GNWT’s Deferred Maintenance and Capital Asset Retrofit Program.

The estimates do not include appropriations for housing infrastructure proposed by the NWT Housing Corporation in 2013-2014, totalling $14.5 million. The appropriation for these investments will be sought during committee’s review of the draft 2013-2014 Main Estimates in January 2013. The NWT Housing Corporation’s proposed 2013-2014 Capital Plan, however, has been included in the estimates document as an information item.

Including the proposed housing investment, the total planned infrastructure investment in 2013-2014 will be $137.8 million. Although the 2013-2014 Capital Estimates are the second year of reduced capital spending, the estimates still provide a stable source of funding for community governments and permit the completion of many of the projects begun during the 16th Assembly.

As Members are aware, this level of funding will not address the GNWT’s growing infrastructure deficit, which is currently estimated at $3 billion over the next five years. This does not include deficits also accruing in our municipal and housing infrastructure needs.

However, the increase to our borrowing limit and adherence to our fiscal strategy will provide us with an opportunity to start addressing this deficit by planning to increase the GNWT’s share of capital investment from $75 million to $125 million for two years, starting in 2014-2015.

The short-term increase in our capital spending will provide the GNWT the opportunity to make investments to improve our territory’s essential infrastructure base to deliver programs and services and to allow the GNWT to participate in future federal infrastructure programs.

The increase, however, is not sustainable without new revenues from devolution or further expenditure constraints or reductions.

Major highlights of these estimates include:

• $29.6 million for facility replacements and

renovations, including funding for the upfront planning for the upgrades that will be required at Stanton Territorial Hospital;

• $28 million to continue to contribute to the

community infrastructure needs;

• $23.3 million for highways and other winter

roads across the NWT;

• $12 million for small capital projects across all

departments;

• $5 million to continue the GNWT’s Deferred

Maintenance Program;

• $4.4 million for information technology projects;

• $2.1 million for improvements to NWT parks;

and

• $1.2 million to continue the Capital Asset

Retrofit Program for energy efficiency upgrades to existing GNWT buildings.

I am prepared to review the details of the 2013-2014 Capital Estimates.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Would you like to join your witnesses at the witness table? I will now turn to Regular Members to see if anyone has general comments. Mr. Menicoche.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. I believe the Minister is going to keep a note of some of these issues and speak to them at the end of the general comments. Thank you that most of your remarks were general comments. It’s general comments, not general questions. Let’s move on to Ms. Bisaro now, please.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I do have a number of comments I want to make with regard to the budget. They’re in no particular order. At the outset I want to say that I do support the fiscal policy that we are currently following. I do agree with the government that we have to kind of keep things down to a dull roar.

With that said, there is a real concern on the part of myself and many other Members that we are leaving ourselves open to increasing our deferred maintenance to increasing our infrastructure deficit. It’s entirely possible that we will be struggling if we don’t increase our capital budget in the near future. I hear from the Minister that yes, in another year or two years’ time there will be an increase to our

capital budget, but I think there are many things that are lacking and I’m going to outline a few of them.

One of the things that I think has been a positive in the last couple of years has been a reduction in the dollar value of the carry-overs that we’ve had from one year to the next. I think that’s a really good move. We did take on a huge infrastructure budget because we were taking advantage of the stimulus funding from the federal government. I think that was a good thing to do but it did leave us, I think, a bit under the gun and I think our staff had a bit of a difficult time in getting all the projects out and enabling us to get contractors to get the work done. I’m glad to see that our carry-over has gone down and I hope that it’s going to go down even more.

I think the ideal would be that we have projects identified in our capital budget earlier, as was mentioned by Mr. Menicoche, so that we can get the projects out and get them done, and I would hope that we’d get down to 5 or 10 percent carry-overs from where we are now. I think that would be optimum.

I note that the Minister talked about $5 million in deferred maintenance. I agree with that. I think that’s absolutely the way to go. We have been spending a great deal of money on deferred maintenance and our buildings, and our infrastructure is such that it’s definitely needed. I fully support that, and if we could, I would increase the amount of money that we spend on deferred maintenance.

There are a couple of projects which are not in the budget which are of concern to me. In the last Assembly there was an indication that we needed, and the department had proven was needed, a facility for girls and women; a new facility for girls and women, for correctional purposes, that was intended to be built in Fort Smith to replace the current women’s facility. That project is nowhere on the timeline of this budget. From what we’ve been told by the Minister and the department, it’s not going to be anywhere on the timeline for another couple of years. That concerns me. The current facility is very badly in need of replacement. Again, our limited capital budget doesn’t allow for us to get that project on the go.

Another area that concerns me, as well, is infrastructure within Education, Culture and Employment. Particularly in Yellowknife, we have two schools that have a need. One for upgrading and renovation, and that’s Sissons. It’s been on the books and then off the books for probably four years now. That is one school that is badly in need of renovation and I don’t see it anywhere on the timeline either. That concerns me. Mildred Hall School is one that still has some work that needs to be done to finish off their renovation project from a number of years ago. Aurora College, the need for

a stand-alone campus for Aurora College is a huge issue for me. The Minister has talked about it a bit and the Department of Education has talked about it a bit but it’s nowhere on the radar.

I am particularly concerned that this budget doesn’t have anything in it that references the Inuvik-Tuk highway. This is a project which this government has committed to. As a Caucus we said it was a priority. We’ve put money into it already. It seems to be a project that we are forging ahead on, and yet in year 2013 we have no indication of capital costs for that project.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. We have some time left on the clock. We can come back to you after. For general comments next on my list I have Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Within the plans for 2013 year I was very shocked to see the lack of spending within the Mackenzie Delta riding. Over the last year we’ve noticed a lot of residents moving back to our communities of the Mackenzie Delta. Whether it’s lack of work either in Inuvik or a lot of students coming back from school in the south, we’ve seen a huge increase of students coming back to the communities. With that, we’ve seen a big demand for housing within the regions. I was hoping that we could plan for this coming year to put more infrastructure into the communities.

Also, to do with Public Works, Moose Kerr School in Aklavik was built in 1968. The school there is 44 years old and I do not see any plans within the next couple of years here to have a new one built. The school is really in need of replacement, yet there’s no room on the red flag list.

Also, as a colleague mentioned, the Inuvik-Tuk highway; as many people know, there’s very little work in Inuvik at this time and the residents of Inuvik could really use some work this winter. I’m hoping that this government could put in place a good portion of the highway to be started within this year, if possible.

Also on our highway, as one of my colleagues mentioned earlier, the condition of our highway. There is a lot of work that has been done on the Dempster Highway, Highway No. 8, over the last number of years, and I commend the government for doing the widening project, but the maintenance part of things has kind of fallen apart. There’s actually less maintenance that is being done to our highway system even though our highway has increased. I know a lot of our residents would like to see that section of the highway chipsealed in the near future, which would attract a lot of tourists. We’re seeing a lot of tourists that aren’t coming to our region mainly because of the situation of the Dempster Highway. I’m hoping that we could address that issue over the coming years. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. I’d like to ask Ms. Bisaro, would you like us to return to you for the conclusion of your comments? She said in a bit. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Welcome to the finance delegation here today in the committee. I do commend the department for a prudent fiscal strategy in terms of tightening the belt for the upcoming year. I do have some concerns in areas such as health. Those are areas in which we’ve got to be a little bit more careful in terms of the term “tightening.”

I think health is one of those areas where you have to make investments ongoing, otherwise you fall behind, I guess, the total plan of healing people. Making the proper investments in the community in terms of all types of infrastructure, I think, are critical for the health and well-being of the Northwest Territories.

That said, I think we’ve also heard from some of the Members here, some of the concerns with population migration and changes in migration patterns for the people of the Northwest Territories. When we get to the area of MACA, and when we do funding formulas, that will be something I know we’ll bring up again, but I just wanted to say from a global perspective, a number of Members are concerned that population changes may have not been factored as effectively as we planned in the 2013 budget. This repopulation exercise would help, I guess, in the re-profiling of I know what the government uses as a needs assessment. I think this has a true reflection of the population. I know the NWTAC has been very supportive of that action as well. I just wanted to put that on the record, Madam Chair.

As the Member for Frame Lake indicated, we’ve seen less carry-over from the federal funding from years past because of a large increase in the year before, and I commend the department for becoming a bit more aggressive on that. I know it’s a lot of work to look at matching federal funds to current funding and then to have enough people to deploy the much needed projects around the Territories, but I do commend them for bringing that number down.

That said, the highways, as mentioned, you know, our colleague from Nahendeh, Highway No. 7 is near and dear to his heart, and I think through attrition it’s near and dear to everybody’s heart here, only because we do feel for the Member and the people of that area. That said, we also have many other highways across the Northwest Territories which are in fairly dire situations or dire needs, and I think the current strategy is really not keeping up with what I think the people of the Northwest Territories are expecting. I’m talking about a safety issue as well as the trickling down effect to tourism as well.

I’m hoping that, as indicated, and we’ve heard from senior management here in the Department of Transportation, of a Highway Strategy. We really need to encourage and foster that environment, because without a strategy it would be very, very difficult to start adding more infrastructure strategy or dollars without that fundamental in place.

As mentioned by some of my other colleagues, the Inuvik-Tuk highway expansion program is one in which I think has been looked at, and again, many of us do support the principle of the highway for many reasons, and I’m one of them, but I’m also very concerned about the funding and how we’re going to afford it. I think the more we talk about it as a government, the more we are able to discuss this with the people of the Northwest Territories, the more we can understand the financial impact of what this will have on everybody. I think it’s a prudent exercise and I know there was probably a good reason for omitting it here in the capital plan, but we know it’s going to come back this year and many Members are just hoping that it would be part of the overall picture.

Lastly, we are very encouraged to see devolution or the components of devolution well underway. Many Members here have great faith in our Premier and his delegation team and we’re very happy to have a number of recent organizations come on board, and I think we see a true value moving forward. The concern I think I have as a Member is with devolution will trigger decentralization, which will go hand in hand, which would include also the planning for tomorrow, and that includes infrastructure for putting these people in communities and infrastructure projects, and I’m not sure if this budget is truly planning for the number of jobs that we’ll be seeing going to the communities in a way in which, I think, would provide that comfort level. I think, you know, I speak not just from Yellowknife’s perspective but I think from all communities, having a very clear plan of action as devolution is on a very good platform and a very good timeline, but 2013 should trigger some of this decentralization to start occurring and I’m hoping that we can get some comments to that.

Madam Chair, I’ll leave it at that. I do have more specifics as we get into the detail. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Next for general comments I have Mr. Yakeleya.