Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Members who brought this motion forward and articulated their concerns and the concerns that they’ve heard.

As responsible Ministers, we are obligated to look at what we’re doing, what we’ve done and the contents of that report. We’re going to do that. We’re going to do it in a very thorough way, and we will look at all the recommendations and there will be a response forthcoming.

In the meantime, that motion is a recommendation to government and we will be abstaining, but before I sit down, I do want to point out that I concur there has been an enormous amount of work done, time, money and effort by many, many people over a long period of time. This is going to be a billion dollar project. It’s one that we have to look at and deal with very carefully. We are well along that path. We all want to achieve the same end. We’ve got some further recommendations from the review board and we will give them very clear and serious consideration. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. I will allow the mover of the motion to have closing remarks. Ms. Bisaro.

Thanks, Mr. Speaker. I want to, first of all, thank the seconder, Mr. Nadli, for seconding the motion so we could bring it forward. I would like to thank all of my colleagues who made comments for your support. To Mr. Hawkins, the arsenic trioxide fits in a rather larger building. It’s the Bellanca Building, not the courthouse, unfortunately. So fill up the Bellanca Building and that’s our 237,000 tons of arsenic trioxide.

I appreciate Mr. Miltenberger’s comments that he recognizes the amount of work that’s been done. This motion asks that Mr. Miltenberger, and hopefully the federal Ministers as well, represent us properly by recognizing the work that’s been done is the right work. The report is thorough, the report is just, the report is valid. I exhort the Ministers to recognize the concerns of residents and that the concerns of residents have been addressed through the recommendations and suggestions in the report and ask again that they endorse the report and start putting the recommendations in place.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask for a recorded vote, and thank you again to my colleagues.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The Member has requested a recorded vote. All Members in favour, please stand.

All those opposed, please stand. All those abstaining, please stand.

In favour, eight; opposed, zero; abstentions, eight. The motion is carried.

---Carried

Item 18, first reading of bills. Item 19, second reading of bills. Item 20, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Bill 3, Wildlife Act; Bill 13, An Act to Repeal the Curfew Act; Bill 14, An Act to Repeal the Pawnbrokers and Second-hand Dealers Act; Bill 15, Gunshot and Stab Wound Mandatory Disclosure Act; Bill 16, An Act to Amend the Justices of the Peace Act; Bill 17, An Act to Amend the Protection Against Family Violence Act; Bill 18, Apology Act; Bill 19, Miscellaneous Statute Law Amendment Act, 2013; Bill 21, An Act to Amend the Dental Profession Act; Bill 22, Territorial Emblems and Honours Act; Bill 24, An Act to Amend the Liquor Act; Tabled Document 70-17(4), Electoral Boundaries Commission, Final Report, May 2013; Tabled Document 107-17(4), NWT Capital Estimates 2014-2015, with Mr. Dolynny the chair.

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee? Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would like to continue with our consideration of Tabled Document 107-17(4), NWT Capital Estimates 2014-2015, and we would like to start with the Department of Education, and Transportation, time willing. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Committee agreed?

Okay, we will continue on with that. Please open your capital estimate books to section seven, Education. To open that up, we’ll go to the Minister of Education for opening comments.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. I don’t have opening comments, but I do have witnesses.

Committee, do we agree we can bring witnesses into the Chamber?

Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort witnesses in.

Alright, Minister Lafferty, please introduce your witnesses to the House.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. With me to my left is Dana Heide, associate deputy minister with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment; and also, to my right is Tammy Allison, facility planning consultant within ECE.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Heide, Ms. Allison, welcome to the

House. Committee, in my mistake earlier I said section seven. It’s section eight of your 2014-2015 Capital Estimates. With that, we will go to general comments. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Welcome to the Minister and guests, witnesses here. I guess I just wanted to throw out general comments here because I’m very concerned about the paucity of projects and especially meaningful work and progress on many of the major issues we have on education infrastructure.

Less than 2 percent of our capital budget this year is dedicated to this department, our second largest department and probably one of the very highest priorities we have as a government in an area where we’re not shining, and we know we need to do what we can both in terms of how we do things and the places we do them in. Amazingly, this is the second year in a row. As low as this budget is this year, it’s even lower than it was last year. Albeit we ended up spending more than predicted, it was still very, very modest.

My big concern here is education, which this department is a critical department in many areas. Education is one of the very critical areas that it’s big in. If I look at the capital infrastructure budget for the education aspects of this department it’s hardly detectable. It’s less than half of even the less than 2 percent. So we’re getting down beyond the undetectable, or into the undetectable area.

You know, we’ll be bringing out some specifics, I’m sure, as we go into the details here, but I think there are major areas in every region. In my area in Yellowknife here, we certainly have been pushing some things with little action. They’re long overdue. Probably one of the biggest is Mildred Hall and, of course, probably Sissons is the biggest where again we’ve been talking about it for a long, long time and it’s a shambles. We’re now doing a planning study this year, but again, amazingly, my jaw dropped when I didn’t see any intent to act on the plan in this coming year’s budget. This fiscal year we are doing a plan and then we’re going to put it on the shelf and let it become dusty and out of date, I guess, for a while.

Again, this is not fully the fault of this Minister. I think it’s Cabinet that has come up with this very unbalanced budget. So I guess I’ll leave it at that, and maybe in terms of a question for the Minister, what’s happening here? This is a priority, you have the backup of this Assembly. Why are we not more successful at getting a balanced capital budget and getting going on these areas that we have been lax on for so long to the point where education is being compromised because of an infrastructure situation that we have the capacity to deal with? I’ll leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll allow Minister Lafferty to respond.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. This whole capital planning process, we go through it every year on an annual basis. Some departments get a fair amount of projects and some don’t. It’s just the reality of it. We follow through with the process that’s been set as part of the capital planning process and all of the departments follow the government-established capital planning process. You know, I can just lay it out where the protection of people, the protection of assets, protection of the environment, financial investment, and also program needs and requirements.

This is also my priority as Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment. Every year we go through this. We push so many projects into our system and at the end of the day we receive a few of them. As with any other department that will be before you, it does fluctuate. I can state that over the last five years as the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, we’ve had upwards of $290 million projects over a five-year period. So we’ve done okay. We’ll continue to push those forward on an annual basis during the capital planning process.

So I just want to reiterate that as a department, we’re very serious about all the capital projects that are before us and we’ll continue to push them through the system. Mahsi, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Mr. Bromley, any further comments? No. Thank you. With that, we’ll continue on to general comments with Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Just in this year’s capital budget you do have a planning study for Trout Lake and their need for a replacement school. That’s how I’ve been approaching the community. The community has always said they want their own stand-alone school and they certainly do want to see renovations there. In fact, kudos to the community of Trout Lake, one of the fastest growing communities in the Northwest Territories. Many young families are moving back and that has resulted in many children now. They’ve actually got 20 in the school right now and those numbers are only going to increase in future years.

So just in terms of the planning study instructions, what direction would the department be going as they initiate their planning studies? And the same thing, too, that Mr. Bromley asked, okay, you’ve got a planning study, but the fear is that it will be shelved. I think a planning study is the assuredness of this government to move ahead with a project and I, too, want to see booked expenditures in future years for capital projects such as this.

So maybe the Minister can explain a little bit about how the planning studies and then how the capital actually gets on the books a bit there. I’ve used almost every leverage working on committees,

Ministers, working with colleagues to try and make this a priority of the House and I believe that we’re getting there and getting a planning study is certainly something that the community is looking forward to, working with the department about just how they see the future of their school.

So just those few comments. Maybe the Minister can fill us in and then I can certainly relay this on to the community of Trout Lake. Thank you.