Debates of May 27th, 2025

Thank you, committee. Total department, not previously authorized, $1,956,000. Are there any questions?

Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, $1,956,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. We will now consider the Department of Finance on page number 6.

Management board secretariat, not previously authorized, $41,600,000. Are there any questions?

Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Finance, operations expenditures, management board secretariat, not previously authorized, $41,600,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you. Total department not previously authorized, $41,600,000. Are there any questions?

Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Finance, operations expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, $41,600,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. We will now consider the Department of Infrastructure on page number 7.

Asset management, not previously authorized, $250,000. Are there any questions?

Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Infrastructure, operations, asset management, not previously authorized, $250,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Energy and strategic initiatives, not previously authorized, $2 million. Are there any questions? Seeing none. Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, energy and strategic initiatives, not previously authorized, $2 million. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Total department not previously authorized, $2,550,000. Are there any questions? Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, total department not previously authorized, $2,250,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. We will now consider the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs on page number 8. Community operations, not previously authorized, $12,835,000. Are there any questions?

Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, community operations, not previously authorized, $12,835,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. Total department, not previously authorized, $12,835,000. Are there any questions?

Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, $12,835,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you, committee. We will now consider the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, page number 9.

Education, not previously authorized, $32,983,000. Are there any questions? To the Member of Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my questions are about the overage on the Mangilaluk School project in Tuktoyaktuk. I just -- it's quite a large overage, and just noting a lot of the concerns that were raised, you know, about the Stanton project and the auditor general report on that one, you know, spoke to our need to control the costs of contracts better, I guess and, you know, this is quite a large overage, so I'd just like to hear a description from the Minister as to how we got here and how we're continuing to improve our contracting and our budgeting and project planning to ensure that these kind of overruns aren't occurring or are minimized. Thank you.

Thank you, Member of Frame Lake. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This certainly is an unfortunate situation of having a further significant overage but on an asset that is of crucial importance to the community and to young people in the region who attend this school obviously, so it is a project that's several years old now and it was, unfortunately, one that was subject to some delays starting, if I'm not mistaken, prior to COVID and that immediately starts to lead us into a situation where project budgets did face some significant challenges, that things changed quite a bit quite substantially in terms of supplies, supply chains, and the costs of supplies. Adding to it, then, Mr. Chair, there were some issues early on when, if I recall correctly, it was a line, but I believe it was specifically telecommunications line discovered and that put some delay in the project and then, again, other delays resulting from that needing to mitigate and manage COVID-19 situation and ensure that the community remained safe when there would be an expectation of fairly large amount of labour coming in and out of the community in order to perform the contract so -- and then when there's delays, there are inevitably overages. There's losses of time and labour that has to sit idle but then there's a cost to it. So that's some of the explanation but beyond that, Mr. Chair, there were some challenges. We are working with a regional contractor, but they were challenged with some of the subcontractors that they were relying upon.

I can only speak, Mr. Chair, from the point of involvement in the last couple of years where Ministers worked more closely directly with the contractor to ensure that their subcontractors were meeting our needs as well in terms of timing. I can say that that relationship was one that proved important because we were able to work together and to bring in a reputable contractor who could advance this project very quickly and in a way that the community was satisfied and we were satisfied with what we were seeing in terms of changes that started to happen quite quickly and then the construction progress and monitoring that is now moving along as I -- last that I understand quite well and steadily.

So the second part of the question, if I understand correctly, Mr. Chair, was with respect to our longer term, you know, vision and longer term responses to these sorts of things that, you know -- the nature of some of the projects that we do take on does -- they are often large and in remote and small communities, and there can certainly run into some challenges that are distinctly and distinct and, you know, everything from wildfires to just simply the ability to bring supplies in, for example, to communities that were barged communities to becoming to fly-in communities, so those do present some challenges. That said, there is now, and has been over the last couple of years some significant changes done to our procurement, particularly of capital projects so, for example, we've reintroduced a peer review committee to ensure that when a project moves forward, it's been reviewed not only within a department but across the planning groups from across departments. There's an ADM capital working group, so, again, they too provide a second level of overage -- or of coverage to ensure that the planning is done adequately and that the budgeting is done to a level and with a level of rigor that really just takes eyes away, you know, human nature, if you're looking at your own projects sometimes you need to have some objective eyes on it so we've introduced both those processes.

And last but not least, Mr. Chair, we've recently put out a new set of guidelines for capital project planning. It's the first time since 2013 that we have updated those guidelines for staff. They are much simpler to use and are brought up to a modern state.

And last but not least, Mr. Chair, I always like talking about vendor performance management. I have asked the department to look at whether we can expand not only looking at our vendor performance management for delivery of BIP commitments but if that can start to be -- if we can get to a place where we are actually able to put that in place more broadly for quality circumstances and quality monitoring, that is certainly more complicated, it would take a fair bit of change, but at the same time there's certainly -- there may be an opportunity here that is if it's already rolled out and it seems to be working well in it the BIP circumstance, maybe this is an opportunity to expand that more broadly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Minister of Finance. Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, some of these reforms to the way that we're managing contracts, have we considered -- or maybe we already do -- consider looking at previous performance on contracts when awarding subsequent contracts. So if a vendor has gone over budget frequently or if the vendor has gone over budget previously, does that affect their point rating in terms of their being awarded contracts in the future? So what I'm looking for is can we demand accountability not just from ourselves but also from contractors as they bid on contracts.

Thank you to the Member. Minister of Finance.