Michael McLeod

The difference is timing and a longer planning period and the ability to have more discussion and have more people on the ground, whether it’s contracted or our own forces. It will allow us to get the contracts out earlier. It will allow us to have more attention paid and more diligence at the project level. We expect that will help us deliver. Mr. Speaker, we are starting to see some of the dollars flying from the federal government, especially in the area of housing, where we will have to spend all the money. It’s a use it or lose it agreement so we expect to do that in the housing front...

Mr. Speaker, we’ve heard the Member loud and clear on many occasions now speaking about Highway No. 7 and Highway No. 1 and other transportation infrastructure in his riding. We’d be glad to work with him and it’s our goal to have our roads strengthened and reconstructed and at some point have chipseal applied or other dust suppression measures.

Mr. Speaker, I’m struggling to answer the Member’s questions. He’s asking questions about the acceleration of the Building Canada Plan where we do have a number of projects, and he’s asking me to disclose what has been discussed with the federal government. That has not come before the House. Our budget has just been introduced today and has not been on the floor of this House, so I can’t really start discussing issues and projects that are in the budget at this point. I’d certainly be glad, to when we come to the portion of the budget presentation that involves Transportation. I can assure...

Again, I’d like to have further detailed discussion through the committee process. But we intend to look at our current housing stock. We have 2,400 units and a lot of them are coming to the point where they need a midlife retrofit, they need to be looked at in terms of energy efficiency, and that’s what we’ll be doing. We’ll also be working with the homeowners in the different communities to provide programs that will help and assist upgrade and look at energy efficiency as part of the requirements. Of course, we’ll be looking at investing in Homeownership Programs.

We certainly have many...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The new housing trust dollars was announced a short time ago and we’re still working with our staff to come up with plans, and we’ll be drafting a letter that we’ll be submitting to the chair to request some time to make a presentation before we go out in the public as what we’re going to be doing. It’s expected that our dollars would be invested in the areas of homeownership in our public housing stock, and repairs and upgrades for energy efficiency. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, that’s going to be a very challenging commitment to make. We have, since this 16th Assembly came about ,we have, as a government, been investing a fairly significant amount in infrastructure. We’re close to the $300 million mark in the previous budget and we are looking at it again this time around. When you start adding all the different infrastructure initiatives in all the different departments including housing, some of the new housing trust money, comparing it to what we used to have, it’s probably triple. In 2001 I believe it was around $100 million; now we’re three times...

Mr. Speaker, that’s a, that’s a very good question.

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, it’s always our intent and we always plan to spend all the dollars and proceed with all our projects that we bring forward as part of our capital budget. Historically, we carried over sometimes up to one-third and possibly more. Over the last while we have done some significant changes to the capital process where the timing of the budget approvals is done in the fall versus the winter months. We’ve changed the system so that we have better due diligence on the projects. We are now in the position where we can roll our...

Mr. Speaker, our first priority in the reconstruction of most of our highways is to strengthen and reconstruct the road base; have that done on our roads and then we can start focusing on the secondary measures such as dust suppressants, including chipseal. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the Deh Cho connection was spearheaded by ITI and we’re certainly trying to do our part to promote and help out with this program that’s been in place for some time. The issue of highways across the Territories has been on the forefront for many of our Members as our roads continue to hit their mid-life retrofit needs. Highway No. 7 is no different. Highway No. 7. In fact, it might be a highway that certainly needs more attention. It was built many years ago and it requires an upgrade and new construction, as we all know now. Last summer we certainly had a lot of...

Mr. Speaker, further to my Return to Written Question 2-16(3), I wish to table the following document entitled Summary of Marine Supply - Petroleum Products.