Thank you, Mr. Chair. My comments will focus around three major things for us in our region. I want to make comments to the Minister. The first one is around Sahtu, which is a stand-alone region within the department, DPW. Our regional office is up in Inuvik. There are plans to have a manager of some type in the Sahtu region. We have employees in the region, yet we still have to call Inuvik, to the higher levels of authority. I want to not only talk to this department but other departments within government. My region wants to become a stand-alone region. With all the challenges our region has, I think it is high time that we stop having other regions take care of us by having the regional office outside of the Sahtu.
I certainly have had an earful from people in my region asking why this still continues today, having our region call outside to do things within our region. I’m looking forward to some type of reason other than to hear reasons why they can’t move positions or create positions in the region. We have to get away from that type of message and say, yes, we can do it, let’s look at it. Is it a possibility? Yes, we can, type of attitude. If it can be done in that direction, I’d like to see it. Hopefully, within the life of this government and the 18th government, the
Sahtu becomes a stand-alone region with the proper positions of authority and the proper support from this government to look at a stand-alone region in our area. I want to say that’s a big one for me within DPW.
I want to thank the Minister for working with the contractors in the region on the new health and wellness long-term care facility in the region. I see a little bit of activity happening there now, so it must be that things are happening. I look forward to that project continuing and moving to a place where we would look at cutting the ribbon and having the facility open and see people moved into the facility.
I appreciate the Minister’s effort and the department’s to complete Tulita’s tank farm. It’s working well and I look forward to seeing an overall evaluation, almost an audit on the project. Where did the expenditures go? Did we support the community in having those dollars go into that project? Accommodations, vehicles, and basically how it went. It’s more of a look at the project itself.
I certainly appreciate the new biomass projects going into the communities in the North and the schools in Tulita and Fort Good Hope. I look forward to those biomass projects with the support of the contractors knowing they can do the work in our communities, Norman Wells, Fort Good Hope and Tulita. We have some pretty good contractors and I certainly support our northern contractors being flexible enough to see if they can do the work. I think our government recognizes doing business further north does cost a bit more; however, I think we have provisions in our work that allows for additional cost. Sometimes we need to just be a little more flexible with regard to getting more northern contractors on board. I think it’ll take some negotiation to make that happen. I wanted to say that to the Minister. These are my comments. I don’t have any other comments in the details. I just wanted to make comment to the Minister that I’m looking forward to a time where the DPW’s office and the project are finishing off the new wellness and long-term care facility.