Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have had discussions internally on how the Sahtu region operates in as far as Public Works and Services goes. We would strongly look at placing an area manager into the region. We have other areas where the activity has not been as high as other bigger regions and we have placed area managers into these other areas. An example is Deh Cho. We’ve placed an area manager in Simpson who actually reports to the regional office from the South Slave; however, it becomes quite independent. This is what the Member wants to see, that the Sahtu region become more independent and less reliant on going to other regions in order to get their support.
Right now, we have only 10 PYs in the Sahtu out of I believe it’s 57 total PYs for the Beaufort-Delta/Sahtu regions. Looking at a position as area manager we see as step one giving us a look at how a region could look in the future. As the volumes increase, as the Member said, there have been lots of activities with new schools and now the new health centre, and we’re bringing people down from Inuvik. If the volumes increase in the Sahtu, we could look at the next step of moving to maybe an area manager that reports to Yellowknife or something into the future. Not necessarily going to
a regional superintendent but maybe giving an area superintendent with more authority and more independence.
The new health centre and long-term care in Norman Wells. A lot of the material is arriving on the winter road so the activity is picking up. We also are gearing up for very heavy activity in the construction of the Norman Wells Health Centre long-term care facility this summer. The Member should see this building going up fairly quickly this summer. I don’t have the exact schedule with me as where we’re expecting to be. The construction will occur this year, then it will be closed, and then they will be working on the inside of the building, and the building would be substantially completed and ready for occupancy in August of 2016. That’s something that we’re shooting for.
The expenditures on that building and where the expenditures occurred, who benefited from the expenditures is something we can do. We can track that. It’s a negotiated contract.
On the other question about the project that was completed with PPD, a tank through the PPD tank farm, again, we would be able to look at the expenditures. I think the Member is asking that we audit the expenditures and so on, on that project, and we can provide that info.
Comments on the biomass. We are seeing that it may be feasible to have biomass in the Sahtu. We’re looking to turn some of the buildings that exist and putting biomass boilers into, I believe it’s the schools in Good Hope, Norman Wells and Tulita. Then, of course, the new long-term care health centre is also going to have a biomass furnace as the primary heat source.