Deh Cho

Statements in Debates

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 7)

There have been very few projects brought forward to this government that are classified as P3. I believe there was one in Fort Smith many years ago. A lot of work was done in the area of policy development in and around P3 projects. The other one is the Deh Cho Bridge, of course. As we move forward, there needs to be more analysis done as the federal government has, as part of the building Canada plan, a funding initiative that’s referred to as the P3 models. We need to move forward if we’re going to access some of those dollars.

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 7)

I’d like to respond by saying that the Member can consider it started already. Thank you.

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 7)

Mr. Speaker, the government of the 16th Assembly has appointed a committee made up of all the infrastructure departments in the lead, and what we’re tasked with is to review the infrastructure process and the process used to select and determine prices and also do the construction. We’ll certainly, as part of that, consider the concerns the Member is raising, and we will report back as things progress.

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 7)

Mr. Speaker, most of the capital has been turned over to the communities. There have been some areas where we haven’t turned over some of the capital items or facilities — more in the case of the facility not being up to standards the community would accept. We still have some carry-overs that were on our infrastructure plan that we intend to move forward on. Those are some of the water plants; I believe we have eight that we have still to deliver. However, for the most part, the communities have accepted the infrastructure. We still need to work on and develop some capacity in some of the...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 6)

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...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 6)

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.

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 6)

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...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 6)

Mr. Speaker, the quick answer to that is no. The evaluation is something we plan to do. At this stage it’s too early to go down and do the evaluations in the communities. We’d wait a little while longer before we start that.

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 6)

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...

Debates of , 16th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 6)

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...