Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For the record, I appreciate the Member’s comments. We had a fairly lengthy discussion about this yesterday. The comments I made yesterday I just leave stand on the record with regard to the Member’s concerns. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Committee, we are on page 8, Transportation, capital investment expenditures, airports, not previously authorized, $700,000. Highways, not previously authorized, $40.1 million. Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m not going to spend a lot of time on this issue. I am going to support the $40 million, but I do that with sort of the side comment of saying I feel that we have little choice. By obstructing the $40 million, I feel that we put the project and other types of headaches for us and we view them as let’s frustrate the process by causing a delay, I guess, in some manner or form.

Members have been very unhappy with the $40 million and how it has come about, but at the same time, I’m a realist and know that if we struck this $40 million, what frustrations have we caused? We’re following someone else’s schedule; that seems to be the fact. If we cause delay by stifling this money, stalling it, deleting it, whatever the case

may be, we may be on the hook for more money, and in the end, it’s almost like our hands are tied.

I want this road built. It’s going to be on the books sooner than later, we’re committed to this project regardless of how the money flows and I think it’s important to let people know that I don’t think at this point, I’m going to say, and I’m qualifying it in my perspective as opposed to the exact Member for Member, but I’m saying generally Members are in support of this initiative and it’s a reality. That’s just the way it is. But just sort of the way this has come about has caused some concern and frustration and it’s difficult to articulate fully, but many people sort of feel the pressure of, well, if we support the way it has been delivered, what have we done. Are we doing our job, or are we not doing our job, and it has been a challenge. But I’m not any fool on the area that I know that we really just don’t have any other choice but to support the money. I worry about how much more this would cause the process by any potential delay.

I’m going to say, as I finish up here, that I’m hopeful the money will be used. I have no doubt that there’s excellent scrutiny on this project by our team and I have no doubt that they will only let the money flow when it’s necessary. So when this money is authorized, it will be authorized over the period to use it, and I know that it will only be used when it’s needed. So the process is a little frustrating on this one and I think the Minister and certainly his staff got it.

That said, I’m happy to support it to the principle that it has to be done anyway. So that’s sort of my position and I do want to see the eventuality of this highway built and I wouldn’t want us to see any unnecessary hurdles put in front of it.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I’ll treat that as a comment. Thank you. Committee, again, page 8, Transportation, capital investment expenditures, airports, not previously authorized, $700,000. Highways, not previously authorized, $40.1 million. Total department, not previously authorized, $40.8 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Page 9, Industry, Tourism and Investment, capital investment expenditures, minerals and petroleum resources, not previously authorized, $3.139 million. Total department, not previously authorized, $3.139 million. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a couple of questions here. The first one has to do with the funding for the construction of a geological collection storage facility. I see we’re being asked to approve $500,000. I don’t have any problem with this project, but I recall from our discussion of the operations expenditures that under the Executive

there is a negative amount of $4.206 million for the same thing to re-profile expenditures for the construction of a geological collection storage facility. So these two numbers don’t jibe and I’d like to know where the extra $3.7 million is going to be if we’re only spending $500,000 on this particular project but the Executive is giving up $4.2. Where’s the other $3.7 million? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. For that, we’ll go to Mr. Aumond.

Thanks to Mr. Aumond for the explanation. It’s very clear, but again, it confuses me. Why do we not transfer what we’re going to be spending? Why not transfer the other devolution money, the $3.7 million from our devolution money, in the year in which it’s going to be spent? Thank you.

Okay. I had to think about that. We’ve passed the ’15-16 infrastructure budget. So I guess it’s just anybody looking at it from the outside would have a difficult time following these numbers. I guess it would help, I don’t know if it’s allowed, but I guess it would certainly help if that explanation was included in the text that we have on this page. It would certainly make it easier to understand.

My other question has to do with the transfer, and there are a couple of them in this budget, the transfer of federal buildings to us from devolution and we’re accounting for these. I’d like to know, we see that they’re here as an expense, but I’d like to know from the Minister or from the department how we account for these capital assets that we’ve taken over. There’s an expense here, but are we shelling out money, or where is the revenue coming from, I guess. Is there revenue from the feds to account for this expense that’s recorded here? Thank you.

Thanks to Mr. Aumond. So there is no revenue anywhere. Like, the funding that we got from the federal government for devolution, was any of that for these capital assets? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Committee, again, we’re on page 9, Industry, Tourism and Investment, capital investment expenditures, minerals and petroleum resources, not previously authorized, $3.139 million. Total department, not previously authorized, $3.139 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Page 10, Environment and Natural Resources, capital investment expenditures, wildlife, not previously authorized, $43,000. Water resources, not previously authorized, $3.096 million. Total department, not previously authorized, $3.139 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Motion is being circulated. Motion is in order. The motion is carried.

---Carried

Committee, Tabled Document 154-17(5) will be reported and recommended as ready for consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill.

With that, I’d like to thank our guests here this afternoon. Mr. Lovely, Mr. Neudorf, Mr. Aumond,

thanks for joining us. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses out of the House.

In keeping with direction provided by committee, we will now return to Tabled Document 115-17(5), NWT Capital Estimates 2015-2016. We do have one department remaining, the Department of Transportation. With that, we’ll go to Minister Beaulieu to see if he has any witnesses he’d like to bring into the House. Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I do.