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

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am directing my question to the line entry of over $3 million for the Sir Alexander Mackenzie and Samuel Hearne School replacement in Inuvik.

Madam Chair, for the record, the facility itself is a great facility. I had a chance to tour that with a number of our Regular Members. I think the school and people of Inuvik should be very proud of that infrastructure. However, my job as a Member here is to look at all cost expenditures. My job here is to look at protecting the public purse. So, again, no disrespect in my questions, but they need to be asked and this is why I’m here today.

I have taken great pride in doing my own forensic audit on this project from the ground up going back

as many years as almost two Assemblies. My concern with this is that we continuously see this line entry of remediation work, teardown work, demolition work. This has popped up a number of times now in different budgets. We’ve seen it sometimes in negative supps, which means taking it from one pot of money and putting it into another pot of money. We are seeing it now in an infrastructure budget. I’ve seen it now located in the operations budget. So this project, in terms of how we do a public works and services is, in my mind, a little bit cumbersome. I’ve followed this project and I’m confused. God forbid if someone was not following this project, would, in my humble opinion, never know exactly where these monies are coming from and what exactly is the scope of this project.

My first question is: This $3.64 million that we’re seeing here for remediation work is adding to the cost of what? Where are we at right now with the terms of demolition and what is the total scope of the demolition project, if I can add that as a whole, to remove the two schools which are now vacant and probably causing some concern for vandalism or safety? That’s my first question.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This money is carried over. It’s been identified to do the work that’s laid out here in terms of dismantling the old structures. There is a bunch of work to be done tied to that, so I will ask Mr. Guy to lay out the detail.

I appreciate the Member’s comment about the O and M money and capital money and over the number of years, so we can have some discussion on that. But I will ask Mr. Guy to speak to this, but this is not adding to it. The project is complete. The big total is there. This is money that’s already just being now spent to do the final cleaning up.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Guy.

Thank you, Mr. Guy. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, I appreciate it. I didn’t quite hear what the final total is in the response. I did hear we were adding some sports facility equipment, which begs to ask my next question in terms of the whole project cost. Now, we’ve got policies that say, well, you can’t add the remediation work to the total asset, and you can’t depreciate as a whole asset, but it clearly begs the question, we’re removing buildings, we’re adding infrastructure, we’re adding infrastructure that is being used by the school, but yet it’s not adding to the whole capital cost of that project or allowed for depreciation.

Can the Minister indicate, or the deputy minister indicate, how do you capitalize this stuff after it’s put in place? Is it a separate item or entity or is it part of the school that we’re going to be capitalizing and depreciating as assets as we move forward for the years to come?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Aumond.

I guess, just so I can put it again, connect all these dots for a project of this magnitude, this $3.64 million is being capitalized and it will be added to the whole asset cost of the new E3 School. Is that a yes or a no?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Miltenberger.

Madam Chair, we have tried to indicate that that number was already there in initial appropriation and is now being expended and it is now being accounted for at this juncture with this carry-over request. Now it is time to use that. It is not going to be added to the project cost. It is already part of the project cost.

Madam Chair, so it is not added to the project cost, it is part of the project cost. I will have to analyze Hansard tomorrow to find out what exactly that meant.

Again, I am extremely confused and probably somewhat disappointed again with the way we are handling our large-scale projects, the way we are handling remediation work and our demolition work, and how we kind of peel it off and call it something else, and we don’t look at the total project as it is in terms of what did this project cost taxpayers. I will continue my championing of the system to show that we have to do things better. I am hoping that the Minister approves of that statement, is that it is confusing.

I am good with numbers, but I can tell you that, for the life of me, I have had to struggle with trying to understand how our Public Works and Services deals with these types of projects. It just does not make sense at all. I know that the Auditor General of Canada is also in my court and they have also asked those same questions. I will work with the colleagues I need to work with to hopefully bring some clarity as we move forward so we don’t repeat this type of endeavour with large-scale projects. At the end of the day, I think the public deserves to know and has to have transparency and clarity on where we are putting our money. Quite frankly, right now those two variables are not in the current process. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. I will take that as a comment. Education, Culture and Employment, capital investment expenditures, education and culture, not previously authorized, $5.94 million.

Thank you. Advanced education, not previously authorized, $240,000.

Total department, not previously authorized, $6.18 million

Page 13, Transportation, capital investment expenditures, not previously authorized, airports, $5.068 million.

Highways, not previously authorized, $42.258 million. Mr. Dolynny.

Madam Chair, I will start my first line of questioning regarding the Deh Cho Bridge. We see a line entry here of $3.315 million. Can we get maybe some explanation as to… Is this new money? Is this holdback money? Is this to complete deficiencies? Is this to complete what many of us know that there have been some issues with the height railing? We know that we have some closures this summer to one lane. If we can get a little bit more explanation as to exactly what this $3.3 million is in the supplementary. Thank you.