Robert Bouchard

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize Sean Ivens, a long-timer from Hay River and a friend of mine, as well as representative Herron who represents us. We’ve talked quite a bit about Alaska and the Northwest Territories and how much we have in common. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The follow-up of deferred maintenance, and I think the deferred maintenance was a lot worse, especially when we started this Assembly, but do we still feel that deferred maintenance is a strong issue. Is it an issue that’s actually costing us?

The new buildings we’re doing, like the Minister indicated, as soon as we build a new building we have deferred maintenance, so are we getting the value out of our new buildings that we’re building? Because of the volume of our deferred maintenance, is that life of those buildings getting less and less? Are we seeing that we used...

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Next I have Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do have a couple of quick comments. I do appreciate the work that is being done on the solar panels at Whispering Willows.

I guess senior housing has been a big issue recently, and I know it’s going to continue to be a bigger problem with the aging population. Some of the problems that we are seeing are basically the quantity, I guess, the seniors in their own homes in places. I guess we’re having some difficulty in the placement side of it. There’s a gap, it seems to me, between seniors that have houses that are dilapidated or need major retrofits. Housing has indicated...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will keep my comments fairly brief. I think most Members have taken on the issues that concern me.

I guess one of the biggest issues that I see right off the hop is, like other Members have indicated, it is one of the biggest operating budgets but yet it is probably well in the bottom half of the capital budget. My concerns would be the fact that we have to keep upgrading schools. We have to keep upgrading those facilities. I see a couple of retrofits on them but not a lot of big projects. I know we have done a couple of big projects in the regional centres, but it just...

I know some responsibilities that have been federal only, let’s say building new highways, have now become the responsibility of the GNWT. We’ve committed money to creating some of those new highways.

Is there a way that we can commit dollars to it to maybe move this project forward?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated in my Member’s statement, Hay River needs dredging. I know the Minister of Transportation had federal meetings, including the meeting with the federal Minister of Transportation. Was Hay River dredging on the agenda?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ve been here for three years and I’m going to continue to dwell on the issue that Hay River needs dredging. The community of Hay River is the hub of the North. We do a lot of transportation; we have a railhead there. We’ve been asking for many years to get dredging in the Hay River.

It used to be a federal responsibility. We’ve been talking, I’ve been talking, my colleagues have been talking about dredging requirements. This year has been extremely low. As everybody knows, water levels are low everywhere, but now it is a critical situation.

Now we need our government...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister of Transportation commit to getting a meeting together of all the responsible federal Ministers to see that we can move this project forward in the future sooner than later?