Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to the Minister and his staff. I appreciate the opportunity to speak briefly in response to this document, the capital budget. I don’t think it’s any secret that our population is struggling with the cost of living and that infrastructure that addresses the cost of living is a priority for both our people and our Members here.
On that basis, I’m a little disappointed, as the Minister knows, at the lack of community energy projects that will address in a long-term, comprehensive, meaningful way the cost of energy, both heating and electricity, across the Northwest Territories. I’m very open to any other way that we can pursue those options, but I don’t see it in the capital plan here. A big disappointment since we’ve been struggling with this for a long time, and although we’ve had a lot of money available, we haven’t really done all that much with it and a lot of it is left being unspent.
I think some of the options we have are to pursue these through the Building Canada Fund, a decision we’ve chosen not to do. Instead, going off after very expensive highway projects that don’t really address the cost of living very effectively within the communities themselves in the same way and in a way that’s really needed. I’m pleased that the fibre optic line is going ahead and making good p
rogress. I’m disappointed that we
weren’t able to, I suppose, administratively find a
way to spread that cost over a couple of fiscal years, but that didn’t seem to be doable. I think we’ve spoken lots about the Stanton Territorial Hospital. I don’t have a clue what’s going on there. I don’t know what the budget is anymore for that hospital and I’d appreciate learning anything more. I’m learning lots on the street, but I prefer to hear it from the Minister and at least have it confirmed and maybe learn what the budget is now for that project and what the implications are for the current structure both financially and in terms of serving our infrastructure needs.
In the area of education and child care, I think, again, we’ve discussed a little bit of the child care challenges we have. We’re sort of a third world country, and despite the fact of us harping on this for a long time, there is still not much progress at all in that area and I don’t see much reflected here. We know that Aurora College, again a perennial topic, speaking specifically about the Yellowknife Campus, I think the Minister is aware that we’ve done a couple of committee tours over the last two Assemblies of the Aurora College Yellowknife Campus and they’ve been eye-openers.
I don’t know if the Minister has
had occasion to do that or not, but we were simply going down the hallway from office to office,
so we’d
have to move into somebody’s office to allow people to get by in the hallway. Talk about a bunch of sardines squeezed into a tin can. So, I don’t know how long we want to put that off.
It’s not even on the
20-
year plan that I’m aware of. So, that’s certainly a
real gap and a real disappointment.
I’d just like to talk about a new subject and get this on the plan and that’s a new school for Detah, replacing the Kaw Tay Whee School. In 1969 we put in a couple of portables and connected them, and eventually we put in a couple more portables in 1988 and did a little renovation to them so they could have a storeroom space and a little bit of shelving. That was done in ‘13-14. So, to date, they have four classrooms, and in speaking to the Minister, they have a junior kindergarten class, a kindergarten class and eight grades going to that four-room school. That somewhat old and dilapidated portable structures four-room school. The community is to the point where they are rightfully thinking they deserve bet
ter. So, I’d like to very much suggest that we get
that on the list.
There are many good things in the budget that we’re happy to see going forward, I’m happy to see going forward.
I particularly appreciate the Minister’s
recognition of the need to get after the long overdue Mildred
Hall
and
particularly
J.H.
Sissons
renovations with planning studies for those two facilities, recognizing that some of the work that was done quite some time ago was not completed.
So it’s
time to get after those. You know, in general our education budget for capital has been very, very modest year after year since we completed the
Inuvik school, and so I think there’s a bit of a catch- up to be done there.
I’m happy to see the work going forward in the Tu Nedhe…Nahendeh, sorry. Couple of the schools there, one constructed and some planning studies. I know those are overdue as well.
Mr. Chair, I think I’ll leave it at that. I’ve highlighted a few areas. I don’t think there are any surprises to the Minister, but I would welcome any comments and any suggestions on how we can get those things done that I don’t see in the budget but would have liked to have seen.
I’ll leave it at that. Thank you.