Michael McLeod

We as a government have committed to doing a lot of work in the area of infrastructure and infrastructure development and all the different aspects, including planning of budgets and looking at the costs and being able to accommodate the contracts so they get out earlier. I would be glad to try to include…. We’ve agreed that we will be as comprehensive as we can, and I’d be glad to bring the issue of the P3 forward to that committee for consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I’d have to go to the department to see what we have in place, but I’d venture to say that all P3 initiatives are done on a case-by-case basis. Thank you.

I thought I had been very clear and concise when I committed to take that on as part of our review. I’ll reinforce that by saying yes, we will take his advice and follow it up.

The whole area of capacity building has been one that has been brought forward as a concern. There are concerns regarding the number of available qualified SCOs. There is also the concern that was raised yesterday or the other day by the Member for Tu Nedhe about qualified recreation workers in the communities. We also need to have people who are qualified and certified in the area of finance.

We are working with LGANT, or Local Government Administrators of the Northwest Territories, to see what we can do. There have been a number of suggestions. One of them is to develop a pool of qualified...

We have been working with the community of Lutselk’e for some time, since the beginning of this project, when we came forward with a partnership arrangement to build and construct the arena. That has been done. The arena’s been opened for operation since January of last year.

Since then, we’ve continued to work with them on a number of different areas, including some of the deficiencies that had to be rectified. We also worked with them to identify, through their O&M dollars, priorities of investment for this facility. We’ve also provided, through the new deal, additional dollars for capital...

Mr. Chairman, the Member’s concerns have been raised by the members of LGANT, the Local Government Administrators of the Northwest Territories. They’ve also been brought forward by the N.W.T. Association of Communities.

One of the things that we’re trying to work out as we move forward on the discussions with the Building Canada Fund is how would the communities access the dollars that would be made available — whether it’s a formula funding process that we have now with the communities for the capital or would it be an application base so that we can enhance what they’re doing already and give...

There is a number of projects that we have approved to date. I believe the Member is asking for a listing of those projects. Those are the Behchoko sewer main replacement, the Behchoko water treatment plant, the Behchoko vault replacement, the Behchoko solid waste disposal site, the Inuvik woodbox utilidor replacement, the Norman Wells water storage tank replacement, the Yellowknife corrugated metal pipe replacement, Fort Simpson water and sewer main replacement, the Fort Smith Water Treatment Plant upgrade, the Hay River sewage treatment lagoon upgrade and the Fort Smith intake ground...

Mr. Speaker, as indicated earlier, we had an excellent partnership arrangement with Lutselk’e on this facility. The community had wanted to see this facility a lot bigger than what we had initially targeted to build in the community. They came up with some of their own funding from their own sources to increase the size, increase the footprint of this facility.

We haven’t worked directly with them to attract new dollars. We have worked with other communities such as Nahanni Butte to spend money on their gym, but in the community of Lutselk’e we haven’t. Not as a specific community but through...

Mr. Chairman, we have confirmation from our government that they will be going into two different areas: transportation and municipal assets. We have a process for the transportation side of it.

The unknown at this point is how the money would flow to the communities. Of course, that’s why we can’t put together any lists and bring it forward because we need to work out a number of things before we can move forward. And dealing with the communities, providing money to the municipalities for capital is one of the areas that we have to yet negotiate and work out.

Mr. Chairman, this whole initiative was put in place by the federal government with a budget of $16 million over five years. It increased by an additional $3 million over the life of those five years.

Although it doesn’t state it, the MRIF program is completed. It’s expected that the new Building Canada Fund will replace it in terms of providing funding for infrastructure to the communities. It would be very unlikely that they would accept a project that’s been approved through the MRIF process — that has an oversight committee that we have joint management on with the federal government, that...