Michael McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think I answered that question. More specific, we have hired 13 students this year. Our target, again, is to try to max the hire from last year. Of course, we have a budget that we have to follow and it’s going to be a challenge, but I’ve instructed our staff to try to achieve the 17 that we hired last year.

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 are opportunities in all our projects that we undertake to deliver, including with the contractors. Thank you.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We place great emphasis on hiring students. We think it’s an important part of our practice to have students involved in our projects and in our departments. With the departments that I represent, both Public Works and Services and Transportation, so far we’ve hired 34 students. Thank you.

The project, in terms of where it’s at with the environmental review process, we expect that the draft environmental impact statement will be delivered to the review board by the end of the month. We also have information on that statement that provides details on engineering and environmental impacts. It’s a fairly large document, I think about a thousand pages, and very comprehensive. The statement also lays out the next steps. That includes initiatives such as public hearings.

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.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, the Department of Public Works and Services is proceeding with the delivery of the combined schools project for the replacement of the Samuel Hearne Secondary School and Sir Alexander Mackenzie School in Inuvik. This combined facility is one of our largest building projects in the history of our government and will support this Assembly’s goal of healthy, educated Northerners.

Mr. Speaker, it’s only been 30 months since the start of construction of the Inuvik Schools Project and it’s already over 66 percent complete...

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...

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.