Thanks to the Premier, but I don’t feel that we’re going to have something which Members and/or the public is going to agree with. The Premier said that this is not going to happen again. Well, I have to say that one organization gets lucky and everybody else, too bad, it’s not ever going to happen again.

I need to know from the Premier… He mentioned a number of funds that we give to non-government organizations. What I heard was that these are organizations providing government services. The example that I referenced is an organization that is not providing any government services; it’s not operating on behalf of the GNWT. So when a non-government organization puts a request through to the Cabinet through committee or through a particular MLA, what is the government going to use to justify awarding that money? There’s no criteria, no policy. So I need to know from the Premier how a decision is going to be made to fund an infrastructure contribution, not operations, to a non-government organization. Thank you.

Thank you. With regard to infrastructure, we have a capital planning process. If there are any requests, they will go into the capital planning process. The capital planning process that we just finished is a process where we involve committees, and in developing our capital plan, projects are ranked in order of importance. There are five criteria: the protection of people, protection of assets, protection of environment, financial investments, program needs or requirements. So that’s the process and that way there’s no queue jumping. All projects are ranked on the basis of the five criteria. Then the Legislative Assembly votes on it or approves it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Premier for itemizing those priorities. I agree with those priorities, but I have to again ask, when an NGO comes forward and is looking for infrastructure, construction money, what are we going to do? The Premier mentions that there’s a process. I’d like to know if he would put that on paper and provide it to me and to committee. Thank you.

Thank you. So I guess my understanding is that the Member is not offended by the fact that we have provided such funding in the past, but would like to see a process where we can continue to do so. We’re quite prepared to discuss this with committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today will be for the new Minister of Transportation. In this House I have talked about dredging and the dredging requirements in Hay River. I’m looking to see what the new Minister of Transportation is going to do to complete the dredging in the Hay River area.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The dredging of any rivers or ports is the responsibility of the federal government. However, we have, in the past, participated and I believe in 2012-13 we got some money from the federal government and we did some dredging right at the port. So we continue to work with the federal government to see if there’s money that can be had to continue the dredging.

Thank you. The Minister talked about some of the, I think they call it dock maintenance that the GNWT did this year.

Does the Minister know how much money we’ve spent on dock maintenance this year and last year, and dredging in the Hay River area?

Thank you. We spent $30,000 in 2012-13 and $30,000 this summer of ’13-14. Thank you.

Thank you. I’m looking to see if the Minister will commit to assisting with the preparations and the assessment of what it’s going to take to complete the dredging in the Hay River area. I know it’s a federal responsibility, but I know the Department of Transportation has spent some money in this area, and I’m just looking for the Minister to commit to whether it has to be outsourced or in-house assessments of what the needs are to complete the dredging and what those costs are so we can take it to the federal government.

Thank you. The best thing the Department of Transportation could probably do is continue to work with the local industry and lobby the federal government for more money to do the dredging. The federal government recognizes that there are areas that have to be dredged, so it’s not like they don’t think it’s necessary. Everybody agrees that it’s completely necessary. We would be happy, as a department, to continue to work with industry. I would also be happy to facilitate a meeting between the federal government and industry in order to complete some dredging. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That was my last question. Is the Minister committed to talking with the federal government, talking with the Prime Minister to get federal funding to complete this project?

Mr. Speaker, we are aware that the Canadian Coast Guard is currently working on a place, so we will continue to engage them at that level.

Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This was an issue that we had a discussion with the NWT Teachers’ Association about, and we had committed to them that we were going to do some work and see what we could do to provide houses in some of the communities where they face the most challenges, one of the communities being actually in the Member’s riding.

We have approximately 102 units right now that we are renting out. I believe 41 of those are taken up by teachers. We’ve converted many of our vacant units into units that could be available to teachers, and we are planning, in the future, to work in each community that has the most need and possibly put some more units into those communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

That actually answers the rest of my questions. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Blake. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Granted the issue of power rates and how those rates are arrived at are a complicated matter, but I’d like to quote from unedited Hansard from yesterday in the House. I’m quoting Minister Miltenberger. “One of the big factors in Yellowknife and Hay River, plus a couple of small communities, is that there is another power distributor, NUL. While we provide and sell power at wholesale rates, the provider in these communities adds their own costs on top of that, which is why there is such a distinct difference...”

Mr. Miltenberger’s comments imply that there is a different rate structure in Hay River and in Yellowknife, when in fact the cost of power is arrived at on a cost-to-service basis. That’s the type of industry this is and all rates are developed and approved by the Public Utilities Board. All communities in the Northwest Territories are rate-based on the cost of service, and these costs are highly scrutinized to ensure that they’re eligible and these rates are approved by the PUB.

Could the Minister please clarify or confirm that this is in fact the case? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister responsible for the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, Mr. Miltenberger.