Thank you, Mr. Chair. I welcome the department here today. I just want to first talk about the economic landscape. As you heard earlier today from the Minister of Finance on the fiscal update, I think it’s important that we view this capital expenditure budget, but I think we need to be wary of some of those high-level issues that we heard and I think many of us know as well.

We know that this current government, the 17th Assembly, struggled in balancing expansion of growth and keeping it in mind with revenue growth.

That’s been mentioned many times. This is even more pronounced now when we see our GNWT revenues flat for the next five years, as has been forecast, and yet we’re still seeing capital spending at the 2 percent level. Another way of looking at it is we have a two to one relationship there. This proportion of relationship will only mean that our short-term debt financing will go to appease our capital appetite in the next couple of years if we continue down this pathway.

As we’ve heard the Minister earlier today, we cannot continue to go down this deficit spending path as we end the 17th and go into the 18th . We

need to make sure of specific investments for our economic future, we know that’s a given, but continuing to increase our borrowing limits for both short term and long term is not a solution to ensure such a future.

As we’ve heard, we’ve got to live within our means and live within our fiscal capacity, and we’ve got to make sure expenditure growth is controlled. Mr. Chair, I say, without prejudice to the current Minister of Finance, we have to get this House in order, b

ecause from my perspective, we’re heading

down a path where I’m not sure if we’re going to be able to maintain all existing assets as they are and meeting all the legislative requirements that are before us. So I speak caution as we move forward.

As for the current capital plan before committee and for the sake of not repeating some of the same comments of my colleagues of yesterday and today, I can tell you that there have been some issues with the Public Works and Services department so-called red flag list. As you heard yesterday, committee talked about a lot of confusion in this area, and I have to echo those comments. We’re seeing planning studies being done and completed in one year and then showing up as being proposed in the next. A point in question, the Fort Simpson Health Centre was one and the Tulita Health Centre are examples of this confusion. So, the question is, why? Is there any way you can clean it up?

I have a suggestion for the department. If you want faith and committee’s ability to trust this red flag list information, you have to make sure this data is accurate moving forward. We can’t flip-flop from year to year. Second, if we want to proceed, and in the interests of consensus government, the list should be a public, living, breathing document. A lot of the stuff is happening behind the scenes and I think the public would be enriched knowing some of this information that should be at their fingertips. So I challenge the government to set that standard high as we begin the 18th Assembly shortly.

Changing gears, tapping into the Building Canada funding is important. Committee does fully support your efforts. H

owever, as we’ve heard time and

time again, committee has tried to influence and

provide some feedback on the project priorities. As we’ve heard in communication back and forth, sharing your completed list with committee is not asking for our input. So I’m asking, as we move forward, can committee have at least some degree of input as you make your list finalized as you are applying for these much needed funding dollars? Again, a suggestion for improvement for the 18th Assembly.

As committee did appreciate the briefing yesterday regarding the newly proposed P3 Stanton Hospital, it’s unfortunate that we can’t share this with the public. So I challenge the department, I challenge the Minister to try to get this out as soon as we can and provide all those options that we talked about.

One of the things that struck me, and a question that has not been quite rectified, is the issue of funding. Why do we not look at other options for funding for this rather than a P3? I like to use the example, Mr. Chair, the building we’re in right now, the Legislative Assembly. This was done under what was referred to as a public bond. This was an opportunity that money could be raised by Northerners, invested by Northerners and where money stays in the North. I’m really suspect why we didn’t try to use that type of tool to move forward. There was never really a discussion point and never really finalized. Again, I’m hoping that we’re not too far down this garden path that we can actually maybe look at that before we embark on this very expensive P3 initiative.

I know that the department has done a lot of…(inaudible)…money analysis, but everyone knows that this P3 hospital project will not be cheap in the long run. Jobs will more than likely go to lots of Southerners and our local businesses will be left on the sidelines, literally with table scraps. This has held true. We know that there have been issues even in Hay River recently with the same proponents who are looking at building a hospital in Yellowknife.

There are issues in Hay River with many businesses being left high and dry and I

’m not sure

if there are litigation issues in the works, but I can tell you that it does concern me. Knowing that that is the microcosm of what is to come for Yellowknife, I do think we need to have that high level discussion. So again, what guarantee do we have to protect local small business operators that are being shut out of this project? I think that’s a question many businesses have and I know they’ve asked me.

On the subject of this new hospital, I know, again not getting into details, it’s not as public as it should be, but what has been mentioned a little bit here is the re-profiling of the old hospital now. What has not been discussed and talked about is the fact that if this building, this hospital, now gets re-profiled to whatever it is. Whethe

r it’s retail, commercial

space, or even space the government may use in some type of form or arrangement, right now, and my numbers are a little old here, Mr. Chair, but not less than a year ago when the new office building that we constructed came on line there was well over 150,000 square feet of commercial real estate vacant in Yellowknife and that basically represented about 14 percent of vacancy.

Again, I don’t have

the statistics of how much vacant space the re- profiled hospital might offer to the environment around Yellowknife, but my quick calculation, just trying to figure out, it could be up to another 10 percent of commercial vacancy added to an already 14 percent market, thereby lifting the overall commercial vacancy rate to over 20-something percent to be fair.

In the world of investment, this puts an imbalance in any economy and creates a lot of dissention amongst landlords, large landlords and smaller landlords, and what really happens is that larger landlords are usually able to make do during these tough economic times.

It’s the smaller landlords

that don’t. These are the landlords that are going to struggle if we’re putting this much more vacancy on the market. So I caution, and again,

I’d like to hear

the high-level discussion, if that has been researched as to do we have concerns that by doing that we’re going to be creating even more imbalance in an already very tight, very tough marketplace which is commercial real estate. So, again, a bit of a loaded question, but one which gravely affects many of the larger and smaller landlords in the city of Yellowknife.

At committee, as we’ve heard, parks upgrades, I think the chair mentioned that earlier. I, too, want to commend the department for the multitude of park upgrades we’re seeing throughout the Northwest Territories. However, with one caveat, that these beautiful parks it seems that, with climate change I guess, if we want to use it in that loose term, we have the ability to use our parks for longer periods of time. One of these parks closed in the middle of September when really many people camp well into September, even in early October, so I challenge the department as they’re doing their operational plans with their contractors that we need to look at lengthening the opening and the earlier opening of our parks so that the public can actually enjoy a lot of the infrastructure that we’ve provided. Finally, Mr. Chair, there’s been some concern for years that the government’s plan for long-term care beds will not fill what we call the impeding demand, given the dramatic aging of our NWT population. Now, we’ve heard how difficult it is to predict and we’ve heard that there have been many commitments and many planning studies involved, but we haven’t really seen a lot of specific investments. Now, the budget does have some good news, and I would welcome the department’s overall view on how they’re dealing with this

impeding issue of aging in place. Also, with the aging of the NWT population, how are we going to be able to find long-term care beds?

I’ll stop there for now, Mr. Chair. I know there are a few questions in there and I definitely have more questions as we get into departments. Thank you.