Michael McLeod

Mr. Chairman, there are two questions I think being posed here. First of all on the dollars identified here for a little over $1 million as to what it would be for, the building and the site works are substantially complete for this facility. We anticipate we’re going to have an official opening sometime before the end of the summer and more than likely it would be sometime in August. However, there are some deficiencies that cause this to have a carry-over and there’s still other associated work that needs to be addressed.

This carry-over is required to meet our commitment and rectify some of...

Mr. Chairman, the Member is correct that the bulk of the dollars earmarked for investment along the Dettah access road has been carried over. We’ve been working with the development corporation out of the community, which is the economic arm of the Yellowknives Dene First Nations. I think we’ve developed a very good working relationship. They’ve done some very good quality work for us. They’re still relatively new at this type of work.

Some of the work that had been done and needed as a guideline and work that would allow us to move forward wasn’t quite done on time. The quarry work that was...

It’s not within my area of responsibility to declare emergencies within the municipalities. That falls under a different department. I can confirm to the Member that we have been actively involved with the municipality. We have people on the ground. Our assistant deputy minister was in Norman Wells yesterday. We’ve had some good discussions. Imperial Oil was also at the meeting. Enbridge Pipelines was also at the meetings. There is a lot of concern within the municipality as the Plains Midwest Canada Pipeline sprung a leak and it had impacts that affected the community. We thought those issues...

Within our government we have the Ministerial Energy Coordinating Committee and through that committee we’ve set up a subcommittee that involves many of the departments across our government that deal with this issue that Norman Wells is facing. The chair of that subcommittee is the regional director. He’s in contact with the community on a regular basis. We have people in attendance at all the meetings that they have. I think they had one yesterday. We had our assistant deputy minister there, along with other government representatives. As to whether they sit formally or have been...

Yes, we do have contracts that state time frames and penalties. However, we do allow for consideration if there are unforeseen circumstances. A lot these companies are local companies. A lot of them are Aboriginal companies. A lot of them are development corporations. The dollar amount that Mr. Krutko has identified is a number of highways that have been packaged up. There is work here that is part of Highway No. 7. Most of these contracts were deferred for some reason or other, usually at no fault of the contractor.

This is a project that was initiated to move away from a culvert type of arrangement to a box bridge type facility. This would provide us with longer term reliability and better drainage as a result.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The decision to convert a number of our facilities in Norman Wells is part of the long-term plan to reduce some of the stress that is being placed on the community and the availability of natural gas. Our plan is to move away from natural gas to leave an adequate supply to the end of the four years that were committed to by Imperial Oil. Right now the decision is to convert to an alternate energy source. We’re trying to decide what is our best route.

As I indicated in responding to questions to Mr. Yakeleya, there isn’t a formal decision on what would be the best type...

Mr. Chairman, this facility is a little different and the discussions with my staff indicate that the payback would be a little bit longer. We anticipate it will be around seven years to have this payback. We think it’s still a good investment and worthy of moving forward with.

Mr. Chairman, we did have some discussions with the federal government with the former Minister of Infrastructure, Mr. Chuck Strahl, and identified I think it’s five projects that we expected we’d have challenges in getting completed. Most of these projects were substantially completed. We needed to have a little more time and we did submit a list to the Minister and received approval for all five. I believe there were two projects that were under the management of the Department of Transportation and three under municipal arrangements. I could provide a list to the Member, if he so requires...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our capital budget for last year was at an historic high of $292 million. We are planning to carry or requesting to carry $72 million of that amount over.

We successfully delivered $220 million worth of projects last year. Of the $72 million which is a carry-over, $25 million of it is for the Deh Cho Bridge. So that would actually, if you removed that portion it, would be around $46 million that we’re carrying over.

There is no connection between the Deh Cho Bridge and the amount DOT is carrying over. The Deh Cho Bridge has consumed time due to the audits that we’ve had...