Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That review is implicit in the work the managers do. It is not built into the form, but as part of managing their respective budgets – the Ministers, department managers – they have to make that determination. They have to look at the budgets. They have to look at the need for travel. We place a very, very heavy emphasis in the North on community travel, on consultation, on working across the Territories with the Aboriginal governments, with NGOs. It’s a very time-consuming, expensive process, but that’s implicit in jobs that managers do. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The territorial government and this Assembly have committed to a broad range of infrastructure development, and I agree with the Member that Stanton is our flagship when it comes to acute care. We’ve started the process, it’s been some time in the making, we’ve dealt with a lot of issues on an ongoing fashion, but we are now fully committed to engage in a process that will see an investment of at least $200 million to do a much needed midlife retrofit and the capital plan is coming forward. The Minister of Health and the Minister of Public Works, sitting to my immediate...

As we have been talking about, we’re talking about a fairly substantial number, a number that, at the end of the day, will exceed the cost of the bridge. We’re talking $200 million, possibly greater, to do this. We’ve committed the resources. It’s in the capital plan. The money has started to flow. We’re going to try to make sure the steps proceed in as timely a way as possible without compromising patient safety and efficiency, and making sure we can manage to run the hospital as we renovate around it.

Thank you. We agree that this is our flagship, it’s a critical piece of health infrastructure. We’re laying out a plan that’s going to allow us to do much needed renovations and, at the same time, keep the operation in Stanton, for the most part, functioning and providing service, which is another critical piece that will add a time and complexity to the completion of the project. But, yes, we agree with the Member that we’d like to get this thing fully in the pipeline as fast as we can without compromising patient safety, and get this much needed project on the road to completion. Thank you.

Thank you. It clearly makes good management sense as we look at the scope of this project, and trying to maintain services as well as complete a major renovation and upgrade, that we have to look at other places, backups for services on a temporary basis, that we may have additional pressure on our medical travel and such. But that will be part of the planning and one of the reasons it’s taking time to get this project to the state that it is.

Once again, we agree with the Member that once we move down the path past the planning, once we get into this, the intent is to try to get it done as...

I can tell the Member that we’re hard at work putting all the pieces in place, doing the proper groundwork to make sure we have the procedures and practices that are necessary if horizontal hydraulic fracturing is going to be considered and contemplated, and to get ready for the use of that technology.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The government’s working collectively to assess the potential impacts of fracking. We’re working, and have involved the committee, to pull together guidelines and best practices. We intend to come forward in the next couple of months with what we think are guidelines for consideration as it pertains to fracking. We’re working, as well, to establish baseline information on groundwater, surface water, wildlife habitat issues working with, of course, the Environmental Research and Studies Fund that exists. It is funded partially by industry. We want to pull all this...

We have been hard at work on this now for well over a year, gathering information, doing our planning work. We’ve had meetings with the National Energy Board. There is a clear recognition that we’re coming into a territory where there are some gaps in terms of groundwater, surface water and wildlife data that have to be made up. Each project will be looked at on its merit as we continue to do the broader required work in terms of gathering the baseline data.

Every application, as far as I’m aware, has to do in their area some initial drilling to set a baseline so they know exactly what is going to be taking place in the ground beneath their feet. There are processes the application will have to go through and we will see what is contained in the detail of the application. It will go through the appropriation processes and the determinations will be made in due course.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to just make the point that if the Member says that he couldn’t find any reference to it high or low and then he says it’s a breach of committee confidentiality, if in fact there’s no evidence or reference to it, how can it be a breach of committee confidentiality? I think the Member is really reaching here on a fairly specious matter. So I would just put that on the record for your consideration as you look at this particular matter. Thank you.