Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As Minister McLeod indicated, the work on the capital plan for 2010-11 is in progress. We will be looking at the progress of the work that Minister McLeod indicated is being done and where it will fit in terms of the planning process. It will be given full consideration within that process that is underway. We will soon be picking up speed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have with me Margaret Melhorn, deputy minister of Finance, and Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary to the FMB. Thank you.

Yes, we do. I would ask Minister McLeod to give you the full detail of the estimates. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Yes, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

I am pleased to present Supplementary Appropriation No. 1 (Infrastructure Expenditures) 2009-2010. This document outlines a reduction of $300,000 for operations expenditures and additional appropriations of $8.5 million for capital investment expenditures in the 2009-2010 fiscal year.

The items for capital investment expenditures include:

$2.5 million for the costs associated with the installation of wood pellet heating systems in GNWT facilities;

$6 million to advance construction of the all-weather access road from Tuktoyaktuk to Gravel Source 177, a Building Canada...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This issue has been given serious consideration, as Mr. McLeod indicated. There is work being done. There is determination of the most appropriate routes, assessment of the gravel source, the quality of the gravel, all those technical issues that have to be resolved. This is on our list and it is being given due and appropriate, serious consideration and as the work is completed, we’ll collectively be in a position to be able to determine the next steps that are possible within the resources available.

Municipal and Community Affairs will be before this House soon. The issues about the type of arrangement, the funding arrangements, the formulas, which I believe are very generous, are there for review. We have built a 9 percent increase into the budget. We have given, though the Member may say it is neither here nor there, 16 cents a litre. I would suggest the pressure we were getting from the Members themselves about bringing that price down would indicate that 16 cents a litre is still nothing that could be sneezed at in this day and age and that we are constantly looking at ways to be as...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Margaret Melhorn, deputy minister of Finance, and Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary to FMB.

Mr. Chairman, during this time period we were faced with extremely high rising and extremely high fuel costs before they peaked out and started to come down. A lot of the budgeting was done trying to compensate for those costs that were going up in some cases on a monthly or sometimes even daily basis and reflects that pressure of that time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present Supplementary Appropriation No. 3, 2008-2009. This document outlines additional appropriations of $17.833 million for operation expenditures and $6 million for capital investment expenditures in the 2008-2009 fiscal year.

Major items for operation expenditures include:

$5.1 million for costs associated with Northwest Territories residents receiving hospital and physician services outside of the Northwest Territories;

$2.8 million for the increased costs associated with the new contractor between the Government of the Northwest Territories and NWT...

Mr. Chairman, the budget in 2007-08 was too low, resulting in a requirement for a supp which brought them up to the level that they are at. Then they used the money that they were given from their share of the supplementary appropriation to maintain that figure. The numbers we are seeing that would assume are costs over and above keeping their utility costs at that level that they got the supp for back in 2007-08.