Thanks, Mr. Chair. First off I'd like to thank the Minister of Finance and his staff for the work that has gone into the capital budget, but I do have some concerns.
I guess a couple of matters in terms of what's in, or what's perhaps not in, the budget. First off, I couldn't find any discussion about the fiscal responsibility policy in the document, and specifically there is a set of calculations that the department goes through to sort out what the envelope is that's available for capital expenditures, and I didn't see those calculations in here, either. I think this has been raised with the department in the past, but I think it would be appropriate to have a section in the Infrastructure Acquisition Plan that discusses how the budget complies with the Fiscal Responsibility Policy and shows us the calculations for what that envelope looks like. I understand that we may get some additional information on that before the conclusion of our consideration of the capital budget.
The second item that I want to raise is the Northwest Territories Power Corporation. Now that the corporation has moved really from being more of an arm's-length body to something that is almost in-house, with the board of directors being deputy ministers, I think it is far more appropriate that the Power Corporation be considered in the capital budget, much the same way that the NWT Housing Corporation is, in that it is here as an information item, that there is additional information available to Members to better understand the capital projects that the corporation intends to undertake, and so on. I think that is just a more transparent way of proceeding, and certainly in line with the reorganization with the Power Corporation. I would request that the Minister include that sort of information in next year's capital budget and provide it to Members. In addition, for this year's budget, I would certainly like to see a lot more information about what the Power Corporation is doing and spending.
Now, I would like to move on, Mr. Chair, to some comments about the budget itself, the capital budget, and of course, budgets are always about setting priorities. I think there is no better place to see what a government's priorities are than to look at how it intends to spend its money.
The single largest expenditure in this budget is a $67 million allocation for the Tlicho all-season road. Before anybody tries to say that I am for or against the road, that is not what this discussion is about. It is about spending priorities. If we are going to find that money within the capital budget, it has to come from somewhere, or something else is probably slipping off of the table somehow. I do have a number of questions that, as we work our way through the various departments, I will be seeking more information about to try to understand where the money was found to fund the $67 million that will go towards the Tlicho all-season road in this year's capital budget.
As I understand, when I look at page 3 of the capital budget, there are some significant changes in the capital estimates for this year, even compared to the revised estimates for last year, particularly with three departments: Education, Culture and Employment, the spending has declined from $29 million to $11 million this year; Environment and Natural Resources, from around $11 million last year to about $3 million this year; Health and Social Services, about $45 million down to about $14 million. I am sure there are some good explanations for those changes in spending from one year to the next. That is the sort of thing I guess I want to key in on, and whether, indeed, any projects that these departments have been delayed or put off define money for the Tlicho road. I guess that is where I am going to be going with that, is to just understand if other matters have been delayed or pushed back to provide money for that particular project.
I will also have some questions around the long-term care facilities that are proposed in the capital budget and why Hay River was chosen as a location in the South Slave, and where that might leave people who require long-term care in Fort Smith and perhaps other communities in the South Slave.
I will have some questions for the Department of Justice on the status of the ever-elusive resource centre. MACA provides a lot of funding to community governments for their own capital projects, and while last year we seem to have made some progress on the infrastructure gap for communities, I am not sure what the case is this year. Also, in terms of moving towards a different funding model that is based on communities' needs, I am not sure what progress we are making in that regard as well.
I also see that the NWT Housing Corporation spending is continuing to decline, and I will have some questions about that.
On the Department of Infrastructure budget, I will have some questions around progress on the Yellowknife Airport capital plan and the committees that the deputy minister is supposed to be setting up. I also have questions around whether there is any capital support for Yellowknife Visitor Services.
I believe those are all of the comments that I have to my opening remarks, Mr. Chair. Thank you very much.