Michael Miltenberger

The key focus I think we have to keep our eye on is we are going to invest something in the neighbourhood of $350 million to do a major retrofit, expand the footprint and service capacity of the Stanton Hospital by about 40 percent and modernize it into the 21st Century. It’s a big operation. There is going to be more staff coming on board.

As we move forward with this process, we will continue to inform everybody. The CEO has already met with staff. The process is not finalized. The final agreement, contract, hasn’t been signed. As those issues become clear, we will sort them out.

We are very...

Thank you. No, it does not. Not in this year, not in the next year. It has no impact on the existing capital plan. As we’ve indicated from the start, this project, the Stanton Hospital and the fibre optic line are large, unique projects that are being dealt with outside of the traditional capital plan, which is focused on all the projects that have been on the list that have been reviewed extensively through the committee process. Thank you.

It’s a hypothetical situation posed by the Member, but we have very clear processes as an employer on how we deal with affected employees. We will use those procedures and policies to the full extent to ensure, should there be, if there is, maybe, that that eventuality occurs, we will ensure that every step is made to address the issues raised by the Member.

Thank you. This project, of course, is funded $200 million by the federal government, $100 million by ourselves. The Government of the Northwest Territories, we’ve got that funding flow starting to work.

In response to the Member’s question, it’s not an advance. It’s going to be from money spent for work done that we are of the opinion of having had one year under our belt and seeing the work that was done by the contractor, got through the start-up issues, got the equipment going, got the staff online, local staff, got all the processes and procedures figured out that this year they will be...

Mr. Speaker, I want to take this opportunity to update Members and the public on our fiscal situation and discuss the ways we are addressing our challenges during the remaining life of this Assembly.

To date, 2014-15 has included a number of fiscal challenges. The most severe fire season in NWT history has cost $55 million, or 3 percent of this year’s budget. A record 64-year low water levels at Snare Hydro required the government to intervene with a $20 million contribution to the NWT Power Corporation to ensure higher electricity costs of 13 percent are not passed on to NWT residents and...

Mr. Chair, I understand that we just intend to do general comments today, so I had not arranged to have any witnesses to be brought in. Thank you.

We are as transparent as possible. We, of course, are interested in being more transparent if that’s possible. We would be more than happy to have discussions with the Member and with committee about what improvements could be made.

I would also just like to touch on some additional information that I didn’t touch on before. There were also payroll audits done, payroll tax audit. Two major payroll tax collectors, and there were two done in Hay River, 23 additional payroll audits are planned, five in Yellowknife, 12 in Hay River, six in Inuvik. The current status is one of the major collectors...

The additional net adjustments for tobacco audits was $378,000, and the additional net adjustments for petroleum products was $2.360 million.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just quickly on a couple of the items. I understand the bridge for the Willow River is in Inuvik just waiting to be hauled over to Aklavik so it can be put in in the coming year. So, very timely as you think about it.

The extension of the ferry or the changing of the ferry, I think that’s a discussion you’ll need to have with Transportation. My understanding is there is significant differences in the ice and how hard the ice freezes up north as opposed to much softer ice and the way it freezes down on the Mackenzie at Providence, but the Minister is listening closely...

We’re going to continue to talk about our own employees negotiating very competitive wage packages where some of our teachers, for example, are some of the best paid in the country. We are going to be talking in an Energy Charrette about the need to look at the issue of type of generation, and we’re going to indicate as a government that we’re prepared to invest hundreds of millions of dollars to deal with the generation issues that have a direct effect and impact on the cost of living tied to energy requirements that the Territorial Power Support Program we currently have does not benefit...