Floyd Roland

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 1, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 1, 2005-2006, be read for the first time. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the services that Ms. Lee has talked about as available here in Yellowknife are territorial services. So they are of the nature that is provided to all residents of the Territories, whether other communities have to travel here to see those specialists. That is a common occurrence within the Northwest Territories. The benefit of having the largest centre is that more services are available here and other residents from across the Territories have to travel here. So it’s a practice that is already done and exercised on a daily basis throughout the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think we just have to look back a couple of years at an incident that is very similar in the nature of what happened and it did, as well, cause an uproar in a number of other communities. When the young offenders’ facilities were moved from their existing location, they were identified in the capital plan and were to be possibly rebuilt in Hay River. At that point a decision was made by the department to proceed on a different lateral and saw the facilities being split and moved to other locations. The young offenders ended up being part of the...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I think in this arena and on the floor of this House we would be silly to say that decisions made in this House were not political ones. That is the nature of the environment we are in and decisions are made based on departments bringing forward substantiation for it. As for changing the rules to only limit $500,000 for being lapsed or carried over and lapsing the rest, we’d find ourselves in the situation we are today. As the year ended, that money would have lapsed. We would have to come forward; the departments would have to come forward for...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Finally we agree. The scope in the project has changed and that is why we are coming back to this House for approval for that change. Up until that approval happens, the authority given to the Assembly remains with that project. The reason we're coming back now is because a request has been made and we've agreed at the first stage, but we need the authority of the Assembly to move beyond this next stage. If the Assembly does not approve of it, then the project, as the department is trying to put in place now, will not proceed until it receives approval of this...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, to try to make this a little more clear, we are bringing this before this Assembly for approval. This money needs to be approved if it’s going to proceed in that manner or, if it doesn’t get approved, then the department has to go back and identify where it would come up with those costs if it was going to proceed with that project. The money is still identified in the books still under the Territorial Treatment Centre, but the location will, if this goes to plan that has been discussed and approved at the first level and now needs approval by the...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the budget as it's laid out and is brought before this House and voted upon gives the government the authority to spend the money on the projects identified. If those projects do not proceed in a timely fashion, then we come back to this Assembly and in the form of a supplementary appropriation to record the amount of capital carryovers for O and M money that was not used in the fiscal year it was identified and we request the carryover. That happens on an annual basis. One of the first bills we bring before this House in a supplementary document is...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, the Member is looking at the area of where we have made a decision and transfers are occurring. In a sense, the change in scope is what we are coming forward now with. The dollars are still identified for the project under the existing terms, as was approved by this Assembly. It is now coming to this Assembly for the changes that are being requested.

As I stated earlier, when this issue, as I laid out earlier on record, the capital acquisition plan from 2002-03, 2003-04 to 2004-05, the substantiation given for carryovers and, at that time, being identified...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, when departments have changes to projects there are provisions within the Financial Administration Manual that lay out what need to be done and we would use that as the tool in informing Members that would be affected by changes to projects. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the process that we use as a Cabinet and FMB when Ministers would come forward with plans or changes in plans, they would have to come and address their changes to us and seek our approval. In this case, a facility was being considered for a major retrofit or replacement and the estimates that are put into the document, in the budget we vote on, are class D estimates and are still subject to change.

As another facility had become available in the territory and looking at the decentralization aspect of government as well as how we conduct our business...