Thank you, Madam Chair. I also heard that there was $8.5 million in the operating budget. Can I just clarify that we are now required to have $8.5 million every single year going forward, or was it a one-time $8.5 million. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I do believe that that is going forward, and I was just looking for the explanation thereof. It's one of those -- and my other favorite word is amortization of the assets. So because we have that value now added in, we do amortize assets in the budget and so that is what you're seeing there.

And so that is going to be ongoing. Again, the actual outflow of any expenditures wouldn't be until the expense has actually occurred at the end of the life of the asset. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'll start by saying I actually -- this is -- I do like this line as opposed to -- I understand why the Minister of Finance does not, but I think this goes to a public accounting standards I've asked governments to do because there was just billions of dollars of liabilities around this country in old asbestos buildings and hazardous materials. Traditionally in our territory, they've ended up in landfills where they probably shouldn't. There's been a long history of not making sure buildings and capital projects are properly disposed of, and I think the more accurate our public accounts can be to what is a cost we will inevitably incur one day, the better. So I I'm happy to see this. I think it gets back to that conversation that every time we build something, there is just lots and lots of costs which are not currently reflected.

I wanted to get a sense of -- this $70 million, I understand is essentially, we asked our accountants to go and look at every single piece of capital we own and then do some sort of calculation of disposing of it, so this is a reflection of everything we presently own.

Do we have an estimate of the $500 million we are projected to spend on infrastructure that we are bringing online, what that would cost in regards to increasing this liability. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I don't think that this is going to be actually as significant. The numbers that are reflected in the 70 million are because of assets that have things -- like the asbestos example being a particularly good one, because the costs of dealing with that are so high. But going forward, it does go on when the asset is coming online. So you'll see it in more real time, if you will. But, again, it's not expected to be nearly as costly as some of the older liabilities that we have. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess, can the Minister assist me in a bit of how we reached this $70 million. I'll just -- you know, I'm thinking of some of our more remote communities that inevitably have assets that have hazardous materials, and then they have landfills that actually are not set up to dispose of hazardous materials.

Was there some consideration given when calculating this figure to the reality that we just don't have the tools to dispose of many of the current assets?

So were we actually doing costing, like if a building is in Ulukhaktok, what it costs to get it to Alberta. Was there specific costing to the North, or was this a generalized Canadian-wide accounting principle. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And Madam Chair, so the change to the accounting standards is Canada-wide. The estimate was done by our own teams. And I appreciate the example that was given, because there is a fairly detailed breakdown that's been provided. And I keep relying on asbestos as my example but the Member's quite right. Fuel tanks are actually a significant asset that does have a significant cost associated, as do solid waste landfills coming under MACA, sewage lagoons. So those are all fairly significant items that actually incur significant costs. So the GNWT buildings themselves is just under the $97,000, but you have -- you have fuel tanks, solid waste facilities, and sewage lagoons really making up the bulk of the rest of that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm happy to hear that breakdown.

I guess, you know -- I often think if you actually want to get government to do something, getting the accountants to change some standards is some of the most effective ways do that. But I'm curious to the extent that which now tracking this liability, does it actually put any obligation to us to follow it.

You gave the example of sewage lagoons. I know that most of our communities' sewage lagoons are not in compliance with their water licenses. Most of them are run by community governments and not at all in any condition to be maintained. Does this actually change any of the reality on the ground that we have to now deal with such things. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So Madam Chair, I agree with the comments earlier. This isn't actually a really positive and important transparency to all.

What triggers the obligation to book an asset under the asset retirement obligations is the fact that there's a legal obligation to do something with that asset. So it, you know, really doesn't change -- it doesn't change the legal obligation. It doesn't create the legal obligation. But there is now a number that an MLA who wishes to hold the government to account can point to and say, hey, you've got this asset booked and there's a certain estimate there; what's going to happen when it comes due in a few years.

So the more specific details as to what is happening and on what -- you know on what time scale, I would have to go to one of my colleagues from the departments that hold those assets. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you. I know this is a lot of questions, but it is $70 million.

One last question: I don't quite fully understand what having something on your books means and, you know, putting it in the operations budget, it kind of in this -- $8.5 million for every year doesn't mean that we're, like, putting it in the bank and then when the fuel tanks need to be moved, we have that money. It's just kind of taking up space, is my understanding.

Can I just get the Minister to explain how having something like this on our books actually makes sure we have the money on hand when it comes time to retire the asset. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It's -- I mean we're having the money on hand, yeah, it -- it's amortization again, and amortization is something that's always reflected in the budget.

I'm going to turn this one over to the deputy minister and see if he wants to speak to that intersection between the planning and the reflection of what's in the budget, please.

Thank you. Deputy minister.

Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I want to thank my colleague from Yellowknife North, asked a bunch of a questions that I was going to start into.

But I think if we don't start to calculate this amount, we just pawn this off on future generations, and that's not a good way of doing business, let alone running a government.

Yeah, when I saw the amount, I was, quite frankly, astounded at how low it is. You know, the diamond mines each - the big ones, they have hundreds of millions of dollars set aside in financial security to deal with their closure obligations. And all of our assets to properly dispose, take them down, whatever, only comes to $70 million? I just find that a very -- seems to me to be intuitively very, very low when you think about all of the landfills, sewage lagoons, fuel tanks, the buildings that we own, this seems to be extremely low. As I said, the diamond mines, they've got hundreds of millions of dollars set aside as financial security to deal with this.

So is there something different about the way that those guys have to set aside financial security and the way that this asset retirement obligation is calculated that I'm not aware of? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.