Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present the Capital Estimates 2009–2010 of the Government of the Northwest Territories. These estimates outline appropriations for infrastructure investments of $247.616 million in the 2009–2010 fiscal year.

In early 2008 a review was undertaken on the GNWT’s capital planning process. The review identified many challenges faced by the government in planning and delivering capital projects such as the limited resources and capacity to address existing needs, projects costing more than originally estimated; the heated western Canadian economy, which is...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Contracts are always subject to approval by the House.

I’m not aware of a specific policy that we have that speaks to damage caused by wildlife in the community. I’ll check with the department, and I’ll commit to get back to the Member on that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The initial work on quantifying the deferred maintenance amount was focused on buildings only.

Mr. Speaker, since January 2008 there have been ten animals destroyed, and two in the last week. That is the most immediate, concrete and final type of solution to those particular animals. There is other work underway. I know the Member and I have discussed over the many months the issue of the strategy that has been worked on. My latest information from ENR is that they anticipate having a draft that they can finally share with the Member and with the people by November, which I will commit to do. They’re also looking at fencing and hazing, those type of things as well, to try to deal with...

Just quickly to conclude the issue of the evaluation process framework and the interest of the committee to see that work, we could commit to share that information and get feedback so that we can design the best evaluation framework possible. We will work with the folks from program review as well, since we want to be consistent as we do our evaluations across government.

The issue of IT costs is a difficult one. One of the biggest issues, of course, is the short life cycles that a lot of the equipment has. I’m one of the older Members here. I come from the days when they still used Telex...

Mr. Speaker, the statement I’ll bring forward will lay out the work done to date, what we see as the work yet to be done, a timeline for doing that type of work and rolling out the implementation with target dates set in there.

In regard to the taxes the Member was apprised of what was going on. There has been a significant mail-out across the Northwest Territories. We’ve consulted with a multitude of organizations. We’ve had a two day round table, and we’re still soliciting support until the middle of next week. We look forward to bringing forward a very comprehensive piece of work that lays...

Mr. Speaker, I ask the forbearance and patience of the Member. When I come forward with this statement before the House, I will lay all that information out, as well as other areas that the refocusing committee has been working on, like the program review.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week a number of concerns and questions were raised by Members about the pricing of fuel in the Northwest Territories and the degree of competition in the Yellowknife retail fuel market.

The first step in assessing a situation should be to review the available information. The Department of Finance has compiled information on gasoline and diesel fuel prices in Yellowknife and other major cities in Canada from its own database and from outside sources. Unfortunately, these numbers are not available for heating oil.

The department conducts quarterly price surveys of...

I wish to table the following document entitled Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2009–2010. I also wish to table the following document entitled the Yellowknife Gasoline Prices. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Document 93-16(2), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2009–2010, tabled.

Document 94-16(2), Yellowknife Gasoline Prices, tabled.