Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank committee. I appreciate committee's input and some of their thoughts on the capital plan. I am just going to touch on a few of the high-level concerns that were raised, and then there was a lot of detailed information that was requested by committee. I think they will have an opportunity to question the appropriate Minister when the time comes. I am not going to try to respond on the department's behalf, but I will touch on a couple.
The Fiscal Responsibility Policy, we can commit to provide the information when we are doing the plan reviewing, and we will also provide detail during the business plan review.
The Power Corporation, that is one we are going to have to have a look at. We are willing to look at the best way to get information to Members, and we will have to go back and have a look at that. Committee has mentioned it a couple of times. You are well aware of the fact that you can ask for a briefing, an in camera briefing, with the Power Corporation. I think you are aware of that, but then, again, we will look at the best way to try to get Members information.
Tlicho road, the Tlicho project is a P3 project, and we will keep Members informed as the process unfolds. I just want to reassure Members that there were no projects that were stopped to do the Tlicho all-season road because it is a P3 project. That is something that we are looking at as we go forward. I think P3s sometimes are the best way to get best value for the dollar, so I think there is an opportunity there.
Federal investment, and this is a tough one because we do want to get the information to Members as to what the federal investment is going to be and what the criteria is, but it's hard to relay information to Members that we don't have. We're still trying to work with the federal government to get some of the parameters and the criteria around some of the programs they have.
We have to remember, I think one Member mentioned that it is over 11 years, so we need to make sure that we have the capacity to do it. We like to be able to think that we have the capacity to do it and we have the capacity to do it here in the Northwest Territories. I think it was the Member from Tu Nedhe who talked about some of the work that goes to locally owned business, and he spoke specifically to that highway. I mean, there's a classic example of a negotiated contract that was actually done, done well, done on time, done locally.
If we had more opportunities like that, there are countless cases of this government going above and beyond the call of duty to try and help local business, but sometimes they need to be able to do the work and deliver a quality product. If they do that, such as the highway there, then their chances of securing work in the future are improved, and we've seen many cases of that.
There were a couple of comments on the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I, too, would like to see the Mackenzie Valley highway because we know the economic benefits of highway work; I mean, we've seen that with ITH, the Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk highway. We've seen the benefit of having the work.
Because of the economy in the Northwest Territories, the GNWT is starting to be the only game in town, and so we have to ensure that we try and get as much of this work out to local people as possible. I think with the investments in a highway there's a lot of opportunity there to get a lot of local people working, we've seen that firsthand, and then that should ease our burden in some of our other programs that we have. There's also been a demonstration of that.
I mean, I'm all about trying to get as much work as I can for the people in the NWT, but then we have to ensure that because we're spending taxpayers' money that we get a quality product, and at the end of the day I think if they deliver a quality product then their chances of securing further work improve.
I think that's pretty well it for the high-level stuff. There was one concern about the first bullet on page 2 of the document: increasing transparency and accountability and strengthening consensus government. I mean, that all comes with the process that we go through. We share our O and M budget; we share our capital budget with committee, we get committee's feedback. We're held accountable for that; if we don't deliver a quality product to committee or to this Legislative Assembly or to the Northwest Territories, then we may not be sitting in these seats much longer.
Strengthening consensus government, that goes without saying. I mean, because we share information with Members and get feedback from Members I think it's strengthening our consensus government system that we've been using for a long time, but at the end of the day, I mean, what I want to see and I think what many Members in this room want to see is putting our people to work, and I think it's the most important thing. We'll cross all the t's and dot all the i's when we get them. At the end of the day, it should be about trying to get people in the NWT to work, earn a living, and be less of a burden on the O and M budget of this territorial government.
I'll stop there, Mr. Chair. I mean, I could write a book on my response and I could write a book on everything that the Member for Mackenzie Delta is going to write a book on, but I'll stop there. As we get into detail with the specific departments, I'm sure they'll be able to respond to a lot of his questions. Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, and thank you, committee.