Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is good news or bad news, which do you want to start with? I’m going to end on a positive note, so I’ll start with the bad news, I guess.
Just like the Members here have indicated, I would have the same and similar concerns about our fiscal plan going forward. The government has spent a lot of money on fire suppression this year. Now we’re talking about an accelerated plan for the Tuk to Inuvik highway, which in one way is a good news story. We’re getting the project done quicker, but how do we afford that speed and, I guess, what gets run over by doing it faster? The problem that I’m having with these big projects is the fact that we do them, and we try to keep them on schedule or ahead of schedule, and then contractors and northern benefits get run over. When we approve these projects we think, okay, well, we’re going to have a major project for the Northwest Territories that’s going to have economic benefit for the region, for the territory. Now we accelerate it. How much more employment is there? How much more contractors or equipment has to come out of the South in order to handle that short-term acceleration? I am very concerned with that, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Bromley indicated education and the low volume of capital expenditures there. We have limited expenditures in that area, especially when people are seeing the government spending $20 million here, $40 million there. Yet some people are trying to ask for money to upgrade, not a school, but upgrade community health. Mr. Menicoche talked about that a couple of days ago. Everyone is comparing our activities to our expenditures. Every time we hear someone saying why can’t we fund a handivan when we just gave $20 million for a rate rider, we’ve got all kinds of people asking questions about that type of expenditure when we spend big amounts of money at the drop of a coin. Yet people have been begging and pleading for stuff to be on the red list for years, then we go and do major expenditures. It fits into our fiscal strategy all of a sudden. It fits into our $100 million buffer miraculously, Mr. Chair.
One of the other areas of concern are the French schools. We have a French school and we’re going
to court. One of the biggest expenditures is putting gymnasiums into these facilities. Yet we can go ahead and spend $20 million or $40 million. We divide communities and school boards against each other for the minimal amounts of upgrading the French schools.
Obviously, I have concerns and questions about the air tanker upgrade. What announcements have we done? What are the costs currently? Have we looked at a phase-out approach or are we just going to go out and buy a whole bunch more new units and figure that’s going to be our solution, not knowing what those new units are going to work like? Is there a phased approach we can look at? I would be interested in hearing some of the debate on what the department has done there in ENR.
I guess on a good note, it is good to see us investing back into the territory. The capital budget has more economic development, I would think because we are going to spend more, but again, I am concerned about that accelerated process of a couple of those projects.
It is good to see us investing in chipsealing the highways. There are several roads in my riding where it’s an opportunity, an opportunity to see more tourism. Mr. Menicoche talks about Highway No. 7. We’re looking at doing some stuff there and looking at doing several highways. I’m looking forward to that.
Obviously, it’s good to see us putting into the health facilities throughout the Territories. We are completing the large-scale project in Hay River. The mistake of this government not putting in extended care beds into Hay River when they are taking them out of the existing facility is being alleviated by this current budget coming up. So those are some of the positive sides.
Deferred maintenance is dropping. The department indicated to us that maintenance that we haven’t been doing has been dropping.
It’s good to see us putting more money into our parks. In the South Slave, we see a lot of road traffic, and those facilities are very important to tourism.
I guess those are general comments, Mr. Chair. We will have specific questions on each department. Those are some of my concerns and some of my appreciations. Thank you.