Thank you, Mr. Chair. I thank the committee for some of their comments, and we hear their concerns. Members are absolutely correct. This is probably the biggest capital budget this territory has ever seen, and, with some of the carry-over, I think that increases it even more. This is much-needed investment in a territory where things are very slow now, and we see the importance of a lot of the capital investment across the Northwest Territories.
There were some concerns with the money that was going into roads, but you have to be without a road to understand the importance of having a road. I think we have to look no further than the ITH and the benefit it has brought to the people up there.
If you can leverage $0.75 on the dollar and use $0.25 of your own dollar to move your projects ahead, I think that is a wise use of money. That allows us as a government to reinvest some of the money that we may have invested into these particular initiatives somewhere else. I was just asking Mr. Kalgutkar what our normal capital budget was, and I think it is in around $200 million, maybe just under $200 million. With the significant amount of the investment we have had in the federal government, we would be able to increase that to $325 or $340 million. It is a welcome investment. We hear the concerns of the Members.
The carry-overs, I spoke a bit to the carry-overs before. Building new housing, I am sure the Minister of Housing has heard your concerns. You will have more discussion when you get into the housing information item. There is some challenge with the housing.
I think the Member for Nahendeh raised the investment in the community money. The $29 million we are investing into this particular capital budget is an increase from the $27 million in capital infrastructure money that has been part of the community budget, I think, almost since the new deal in 2007. That number has finally gone up this year. It is $29 million.
The funding shortfall that Members speak of is more on the operations side. There is an opportunity for the communities. My understanding is that they are able to use five or up to 10 percent of the infrastructure money to help deal with some of the operation challenges because communities are much appreciative of the investment in infrastructure.
One of the things in my time as Minister of MACA that I heard from the NWT Association of Communities is: they have all this capital money. They are putting it toward a lot of their capital projects. On the operations side is where they were concerned with so many capital projects coming on stream. They didn't feel they had sufficient operation. There was a lot of work done a few years ago to try and address that. I think in the last couple of operations budgets, we've made investments into trying to address the funding gap. It is still a large gap. There was a lot of good work that was done, I think, at the end of the 16th Legislative Assembly.
On the Child and Family Services, you heard the Minister say before, in responding to questions, that they were looking at bringing forward their work, doing some work right now. They are looking forward to bringing a proposal to the FMB to see if there is more money that could be had for some of the programs that they offer.
Energy projects, I appreciate the comments from the Member from Yellowknife North. There is a lot of money being invested into energy projects, and that is the way of the future. One of the things in my time here, in the Assembly, and having travelled all across the Northwest Territories, visited every community, my time as Minister of Housing, I had an opportunity to visit a lot of the local housing authorities, and I was always quite impressed with the proactive steps they were taking and already starting to invest into a lot of energy projects.
We were dealing with climate change and the high cost of living before it was big news. We were dealing with it. Now that it is out there, we have been able to leverage a lot of investment into many of the projects that we want to see go forward. I know our folks have been doing a lot of work out on the front lines, trying to address it and dealing with climate change and houses getting awfully close to the bank. The federal investment is quite welcome.
I think it was the Member from Yellowknife Centre who talked about such a large infrastructure budget and the fact that we may not have the capacity or the labour force to do it. In some of the work that we have done, we are thinking that this has the potential to create up to 1,200 jobs, I think is the figure I have seen somewhere. Of course, there is going to be concern with such large infrastructure projects. Some may be awarded to firms from the south. We don't know that. Some may have to bring in some people from the south. Hopefully, like a lot of people, they fall in love with the North and just decide to stay here.
If you notice, a lot of this money is in the regions and in some of the smaller communities where we would like them to take advantage of the local labour force that they have in the communities, which would be a benefit. Again, I use the Inuvik Tuktoyaktuk Highway for an example because that created close to 600 jobs. Eighty-five percent of those jobs were people from the Beau-Del and other parts of the Northwest Territories.
I have seen the fact that income support payments had gone down and housing rent collections had gone up. That, I think, was just a benefit of having that project go ahead. Now, you see. I talked to folks from Tuktoyaktuk a lot up in Inuvik. They drive in and they are very pleased with the road and the benefits that it has brought to them. As I said before, you have to go without a road to appreciate the value that a road brings to your area. If we can use federal money to help leverage $0.75, if I can use $0.75 of your money and put in $0.25 of my own to buy something, why not? It is just good business, and it is beneficial.
There were a number of other areas that were touched on. I hope I responded to most of the major issues that were raised or all the issues that were raised. Again, we do have a very significant capital budget. I believe at this time, it is a much needed investment with the economy slowing down in some parts of the Northwest Territories and where the work that is come from the government through the capital budget would be fairly welcome. I think I have addressed a lot of the concerns.
As we go into each department's capital budget, I am sure Members will have more detailed questions that the Minister of that particular department will be in a better position to answer. Thank you, Mr. Chair.