Thank you, Deputy Minister Loutitt. Are there any other comments, questions under the corporate management section? Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I'd like to pick up where my colleague from Yellowknife North left off. The Mackenzie Valley Highway has been in environmental assessment now for over seven years. Seven years. It was submitted to environmental assessment by GNWT Department of Transportation back in February of 2013. What I'm worried is that the same thing is about to happen with the Slave Geological Province Road. I've heard a lot of fuzziness around what this project really is; whether it includes hydro; is it really part of a bigger project that's going to spill over into Nunavut? It's extremely fuzzy. I understand that some of this funding is perhaps to better define the project, at least I hope so for $40 million. I'd like to know: is it the intention to submit a project to environmental assessment during the life of this Assembly? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The best time would have been to build this would have been at least 30 years ago, but the second time is just to get it started now. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Given that the GNWT itself triggered an environmental assessment for the Mackenzie Valley Highway, is this government going to submit or trigger an environment assessment itself for the Slave Geological Province road or Lockhart Lake road, whatever's it's going to be called? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. We will be submitting regulatory applications for the projects. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I'm not sure that the Minister actually understood my question. Of course, regulatory applications are the first step to an environmental assessment, but any party, including GNWT -- I shouldn't say, "any party" -- a limited number of parties can actually trigger or, once the applications are filed, ask that an environmental assessment be conducted. One of those parties is this government. Is this party going to trigger an environmental assessment for this project? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will get Mr. Moore to explain further. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Moore?

Thank you, Mr. Moore. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I'm going to stop this line of questioning on this item because I don't think my witnesses here really actually understand what's in the MVR, that our government actually does have the authority to trigger an environmental assessment, which is exactly what they did for the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I might suggest that they do some homework on this issue.

I want to go back to what the Minister said about this project: it would have been good maybe 30 years ago. What I'm worried about is: I would like to see a cost benefit study or a business case developed for the road from the end of the Ingraham Trail to Lockhart Lake if, indeed, that's what the project is. Maybe even the more important question to ask is: by putting this money into this road, it means that we're not doing other things. What are the opportunity costs associated with doing this road? If it costs $450 million, that's 20 years of universal childcare that we could have in the Northwest Territories. Four hundred and fifty million dollars would probably get most of our housing out of core need. Choices have to be made, and I've made my choice that I don't think this is a great investment, quite frankly, especially at a time where caribou are at a critical stage, the Bathurst caribou herd. In the kind of economic analysis that the department intends to undertake, is that kind of work going to be done to look at what the opportunity cost are of spending $450 million on a road that ends at Lockhart Lake? Is that kind of economic analysis going to be done? Thanks Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Absolutely, we can look into it. I do want to make note that we have funding for the road. There's lots of work for businesses who are accessing it. Also, just a note, some of the funding we received is specifically for roads and highways and project-specific. We can't be telling the federal government to go and say, "No. We don't want to spend your money on an area where it's slotted, rather than to use it in another area." We are getting $75 into communities we wouldn't be able to get in any of our communities anyway. Thank you, Madam.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yes. I really want to encourage the Minister, maybe working with her colleague the Minister of Finance to do that kind of macro-economic analysis of what we could actually get for $450 million, the cost to build this road. We don't have the $450 million to build it, and I think that's probably on the low side. Would we create more jobs? Would we create greater well-being for the Northwest Territories if we invested in that money into childcare or housing rather than building a road? That's a fundamental question here that I hope that my colleagues on the other side are actually listening to.

We only have $538 million left in the borrowing limit for this government. How are we going to be able to afford to do Mackenzie Valley Highway work, Slave Geological Province road, and Taltson all at the same time when we have that limited amount of borrowing limit left? We can't do it all. Hard decisions have to be made, and no one seems to want to make that decision, those hard decisions about what our real priorities are: whether we're going to put our people first in terms of childcare, housing, you name it; or are we going to build roads? I'm sorry. That's the stark choice that faces this government.

I've said before: if I had to build one infrastructure project, it's not even in the budget, is completing a network of broadband connecting all of our communities to high speed Internet. It's not even in this budget. It's not even a big infrastructure project nowhere. That's the project that we can and should be taking to Ottawa, not the Slave Geological Province road.

Those are comments, Madam Chair, but I really urge my colleagues on the other side of the House to do the hard, economic analysis that needs to be done to look at what we can get with the dollars that we have. Investing in a road like this is not going to generate the kind of long-term benefits that I've heard people here talk in very fuzzy terms about. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake, and I will take those as comments as there are no questions. Are there any further comments, questions, to the corporate management, 44 and 45? Member for Thebacha.

I listened to some of the comments around the table. Economic recovery is extremely important. Economic recovery means new dreams, new developments, new things. When I hear comments that are, "These monies and allocations were given for certain projects. They can't be changed to universal childcare. They cannot be changed to something else" -- when we sit around this table and we're talking about infrastructure and we're not even discussing that in that right department, it amazes me on some of the things that are brought here at this level in that sense.

I, too, agree with universal childcare. I, too, agree with all these things. Can't have everything if you don't have infrastructure that is going to carry this territory forward. We have mines closing. We have lost a lot of jobs with this mine. We looked at it this morning. That's a lot of jobs we're talking about. How are you going to rebuild the territory if you don't have dreams and you don't have an amazing infrastructure ability to really want to do something entirely with what we got and ensuring that the federal government helps us with Indigenous procurement so that we can move forward and ownership with the Indigenous peoples because those are the things that could actually be done if you actually want to do it.

From what I see in the discussions in the past, we can do that. You can do anything you want if you put your mind to it. I firmly believe in that. I'm very much a business person; I always have been, all my life. I never depended on government, most of the time. I am very pro-business. I always will be. Other people have other agendas, and that's fine. We can't all think the same, but I know for sure that the three main projects that are designated in our mandate agenda is what we agreed on. The majority is always what we agree on.

There are a couple of things that I noticed in the last day or so that puzzle me about Infrastructure, and it is mainly to deal with the Taltson. I am very much about the Taltson expansion, and now I see that the Minister has appointed the same old board again, all deputy ministers, no arm's length, and that really concerns me. You have very capable people, the president and everyone else at NCPC, who could maybe think of different ideas instead of thinking in tunnel vision, like most governments do, and do something entirely different and think out of the box. Yet, we appoint all these deputy ministers back to a board, instead of having an arm's length board of governors in the governance aspect of the NCPC, and that would also include the Taltson expansion. I want to ask the Minister: how did she decide on this, again? Minister Archie, would you answer my question, please?

Just to be clear, I think that is under the next section, the Taltson. On the corporate management, we've only got the three line items. If you want, I can give you the question when we get to the next section, if that's okay, on the Taltson.

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