Thank you, Minister Abernethy. Before we go to general comments from Members, I would like to ask Mr. Abernethy if he would like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.
Debates of May 29th, 2014
This is page numbers 4467 – 4510 of the Hansard for the 17th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was services.
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Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
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Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
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Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
The Chair Jane Groenewegen
Thank you. I will ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses to the table.
Minister Abernethy, for the record, could you please introduce your witnesses.
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Glen Abernethy Great Slave
Madam Chair, on my left is Mike Aumond, deputy minister of Finance; on my right, Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary to the FMB. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Daryl Dolynny Range Lake
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’d like to welcome the Minister and department here today. I have just a kind of an opening general comment only because, as we become better at public accounts as some of the Members here on this side of the House, the whole issue of tangible capital assets and how we depreciate those assets as we prepare for the upcoming fall here, we see changes in what has not been spent according to the budget. We are looking now at those appropriations that are kind of a carry-forward for infrastructure.
My opening question is: How is depreciation now calculated with these tangible assets? Are we using a revised number? Are we using the actual number? How does this depreciated value move through the system as we prepare for public accounts reporting? Thank you.
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Glen Abernethy Great Slave
Thank you, Madam Chair. To give those specific details, I’d like to go to Deputy Minister Aumond.
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Aumond
Thank you, Madam Chair. For projects that are the subject of the supp here, the carry-overs, the amortization of those assets will not be put into service until the projects are actually completed. Amortization for them does not start until the projects are complete and the assets are put into service. So if it’s a building project, the 40 year life, the schedule for that wouldn’t start until the building is put into service. Thank you.
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Daryl Dolynny Range Lake
Thank you for clarifying that. I appreciate that. I guess I’m just looking at your opening comments and it talks about this is the lowest in the past 10 years in terms of carry-over. You are using the term 21.3 percent.
Can you possibly give an explanation as to the possibilities why we are seeing such a lower carry-over than we have in years past? What has been the trend that has caused a lower carry-over? Thank you.
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Glen Abernethy Great Slave
Thank you, Madam Chair. With the new capital process that came in process, it came live in the 16th Legislative
Assembly. We are further down the line as far as understanding the costs of all projects. We have also been working really hard to actually make sure that projects are moving along in the timeline that was originally scheduled. There are always some unforeseen barriers or challenges, but for the most part, we are becoming more efficient at planning and having concrete numbers so that we’re able to get more of the projects done on time and as designed and intended.
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Daryl Dolynny Range Lake
So can the Minister elaborate? Has there been any one specific area of success? You know, we’re getting better projects? Are there more specifics to that or better estimates? Are we getting better control of our contractors, compliance with timelines? Can we maybe elaborate as to… I’m trying to foster what are those success issues here so that we can look at analyzing if we can use that in other areas of the government. Thank you.
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Consideration in Committee of the Whole of Bills and Other Matters
Glen Abernethy Great Slave
Madam Chair, in the 16th Assembly there was a lot of questions around
this. Back in that time the carry-overs were massive. I think I remember seeing one in the $90 million range. As a result, the Assembly worked really hard to put in a new capital process where we actually have to move further along as far as having
a concept and a plan design and a Class C estimate, which allows us to have a far tighter idea of what the actual build cost is going to be, but it also allows us to have a more comprehensive build schedule. As a result of that, we have been able to get more solid contracts through our procurement process.
There are a lot of details here. There are a lot of things that can affect timing. For more specifics, I would like to go to Deputy Minister Aumond, please.
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Aumond
Thank you, Madam Chair. I’ll just briefly follow up on Mr. Abernethy’s comments. Capital planning process that the Minister referred to injected more rigour into the process, so we have a better understanding about what it is we are trying to construct and what the cost might be.
The other factor I think that is at play, in addition to all those issues with our improvements to our own capital processes, we have a stable market now in terms of… On the bad news side, there’s not a lot of opportunity out there for capital projects other than what the GNWT has on the table right now. We are getting more bids than we were getting, say, five or six years ago on our projects, so the competitive field for our capital plan is a little bit more stable than it was perhaps four or five years ago. Thank you, Madam Chair.
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Daryl Dolynny Range Lake
Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Minister’s and deputy minister’s response. My final area of questioning has to do with where we sit with respect to the Building Canada Plan, which I believe ceased about over a year or two ago. There were some residual projects which I believe were tied to some old monies. I’m looking at the accounting aspect. We cleaned up a lot of that money with the Infrastructure Canada plan we prepared for the Corridors for Canada III, which is a whole new other aspect of infrastructure and building.
Can we get, maybe, a broad overview? Have we used all the provisional monies that were set aside under the original Building Infrastructure Plan? Are some of those monies still reflected in this current infrastructure carry-over? Are we fait accompli? Thank you.
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Aumond
There’s, I guess, a small amount of BCP money reflected in this carry-over, some for MACA for community governments for some water treatment plants and the residual amount in DOT. I would say we have probably spent 95 to 96 percent of the BCP funds that were available to us in the last tranche. We are eagerly awaiting details about how we can engage with the Government of
Canada on the new round of Build Canada money that will be made available to the Northwest Territories and all other jurisdictions in Canada. Thank you.
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