Michael McLeod

Thank you. I would have to question that comment and review what information we provide to the Construction Association. We do have a very good relationship, as we do with the other organizations and Aboriginal governments. In many cases, once the budget is approved, we do provide that information to the relevant organizations and governments. Now this information is also public, once it’s approved. So in many cases there is ability to access the information off the Internet and it’s posted. So I would have to follow up to see if that is indeed the situation. Thank you.

I’d need clarity to that question on whether he’s referring to this year or since the start of this government, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was a barrage of questions in that preamble there. I’ll try to answer the best I can.

Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct; we’ve really taken the position that we needed to invest as a government with some funding that we were able to discuss and negotiate with the federal government to put into the economy of the NWT. We felt that the economy was in a slump across the country and we were not going to be exempt from it, and I think we’ve done very well. We were able to invest roughly $700 million in capital over the last two years in the area of infrastructure, and...

With the departments I represent, our goal is to hire 48 students, and we’re just about there. We’re short roughly a dozen students. The reason for that is we have a number of students who have identified that they want to work with us but they still haven’t, in some cases, finalized their registration with HR or are requiring certain documentation. We fully expect to reach our goal of 48 for both departments. Thank you.

The answer is yes, there is a lot of work that still has to be done. We are planning a comprehensive summer program. The work that needs to be done includes fisheries studies, wildlife surveys, things of that nature. This information will supplement the work that’s already been done. We still need to provide that type of information to get our authorities and permits, and the things that we will require to move forward.

Thank you. We do place great value on our ability to have discussions with the NWT Construction Association. We deal with other associations across the Territories, also. We also value the input from the MLAs.

Mr. Speaker, we’re always in a position to improve our capital process, improve our capital delivery, and our target is to deliver all projects on budget, on schedule. However, there are always factors that come into play that don’t allow us to have that happen, but we want to continue to refine that process and see if our percentages can continue to improve and we expect it will. Thank...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is not wasting any time getting on top of the subject. The Minister was just announced, I think four hours ago.

We already, as I’ve indicated, have been working on a draft for some correspondence to go to the Minister. We are trying to encourage them to look to the North as a place for investment. There has been a lot of tension and there has been some good promises made during the last term of our government. We are inviting him to come to the Northwest Territories to meet with us. We’ve also asked for some time to sit down and talk to him about some of our...

Mr. Speaker, we do have a huge deficit in terms of capital. It’s well over $2 billion if we were going to start to factor in all the needs across the Territories. We do have teams of staff that look at all the projects that come forward from the different departments and we do try to balance out our budget to try to allocate it on a basis where we can deal with the need that is most critical. We have worked out a formula where we have broken down the projects in terms of critical need, medium need, and the least need that would require attention. We try to invest our dollars along those lines...

There’s a lot of ifs in that question that we need to resolve. First of all we need to see what is in the new federal budget. Does it include dollars for this section of highway that the Member is referring to. We also would need to see the results from the review board. We’d also require all necessary authorities, authorizations, permits. There’s lots of work to do. If there’s any work that would be done on the section of highway, it would probably be the final portions that need to be completed on the Tuk gravel access road that we’ve been working on for several years.

The answer is no. Our practice is to try to hire students based on their program of study. If there are students who are planning to be architects, engineers, information technology students, those are the ones we focus on. Sometimes the level of applicants in those areas is not the highest; then we move into the trades and try to hire people in those areas. If there’s still a void in our numbers, then we’ll hire labour positions.