Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table a letter that has been sent to Minister Sandy Lee. It is from the Hay River Seniors’ Society regarding supplementary health benefits and signed by John Brockway, president. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the feasibility study has been concluded, as I said. The ability of the business to support all of the initial start costs, which I believe would be in the neighbourhood of $3 million, this work has now been done with the support of this government. So going forward, what would the next steps be to see if any of the funding that Mr. McLeod has referred to could be allocated for the establishment of a pellet mill in Hay River? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The work of the CEO of the hospital, the public administrator, yourself, Mr. Speaker, and I had met to go over some of this preliminary information. I believe that when this site is decided on or determined, I would hope that we are certain that the stakeholders have been consulted. I know that the Town of Hay River has a very keen interest as well in being kept fully apprised of what is happening with this project. I don’t know why there were no representatives from the town at some of those planning sessions that we were part of, but I would just like to get the...

Mr. Speaker, we have had the construction of a new hospital on the agenda for Hay River for quite a number of years now. There has been a lot of work that has gone into the development plan and trying to determine what is best needed in the community. Now we are down to trying to decide where such a facility would be best located. Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Health and Social Services indicated to me that there could be some time sensitivities around identification of a site for a large capital project. I was wondering if the Minister of Public Works and Services could tell me what is that...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that we report progress.

---Carried

Thank you. I don’t want to be contrary and not support the motion, but, I move the committee strongly recommends that the Premier of the Northwest Territories take immediate action to seek federal authority for a temporary increase to the territorial borrowing authority. Well, good luck with that. I mean we just had it raised from 300 to 500 not so long ago and that was a big ordeal.

We’re not on a shopping trip here. We’re not going down to the federal government and saying, you know, we’ll take one of those or one of those, we’ll take 10 years instead of five years, we’ll take, you know? I...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the committee today would like to deal with Tabled Document 8-16(5), Supplementary Appropriation No. 2, 2010-2011 (Infrastructure Expenditures).

I’d like to ask the Premier, since he brings up the Taltson hydro expansion, how is having our debt card full going to affect our ability to guarantee any loan to do the Taltson expansion?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask my questions to the Premier and it is about the Deh Cho Bridge. Mr. Speaker, in the statement that the Premier made, it said: “First, I want to assure Members and the public that assuming responsibility for the Deh Cho Bridge Project will not change the GNWT’s fiscal situation or the GNWT’s ability to pay for programs and services.”

Mr. Speaker, that is a very categorical statement and doesn’t really take into account anything unforeseen. As my colleague Mr. Ramsay had pointed out, there have been some unexpected occurrences with the Deh Cho Bridge...