Tom Beaulieu

We are going to take a serious look at the possibility of adding more cycles. Although the industry didn’t support us to the full magnitude that they’ve assisted us in the past, we did get some money from industry. Actually, $140,000 to help us with some of the heavy traffic that they were hoping to bring over the winter roads. We’ve had a lot of complaints about the winter road from industry, people moving some fuel and so on into the communities, and from the general population and from the Sahtu, so we are actually seriously considering requesting some money for the winter road in the Sahtu...

Yes, Mr. Speaker, we do. At about five-year blocks we tender the winter road construction in several zones. We have seven zones and each zone could be divided up into two zones, or sometimes it’s just one zone. Then we determine right from Wrigley all the way to Colville Lake who would do what and we tender the work. We issue the work based on tender and a schedule that the contractor has to follow.

The Department of Public Works and Services, Department of Health and Social Services, HR and the Hay River Health and Social Services will have a plan on the disposition of the employees, whether they’re coming over to work for Public Works and maintain the hospital, or if they’re going to remain there for a period of time. Overall, we will have a plan in place before the new hospital is open. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was direction given back in 2010. Any GNWT buildings coming on would be looked at under the consolidated maintenance program which is run by Public Works. This is a new building coming on stream so Public Works will be maintaining it. Thank you.

We’ll have this done. The intention, of course, is to have the building open this summer, so within the next several months. We will have a plan prior to then, so we can talk to the departments. I will talk to HR and Public Works. The Minister of Health and Social Services is going to have a discussion with his staff, and we’ll put a plan together as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thank you. One of the key factors is that the staff at Hay River Health and Social Services is under a different union agreement than the GNWT staff. Although the buildings have been transferred under that consolidated program, all the buildings that were at one time ownership of the Health and Social Services Authority in Hay River are now GNWT buildings. So, what has happened is that we need to be able to have a discussion not only with Health and Social Services and Public Works that would be providing the maintenance but also with HR labour relations to ensure that we’re going into an area...

The department is in regular contact with the Arctic Energy Alliance, as they deliver quite a few programs for the Government of the Northwest Territories. Specifically when this particular program was last reviewed, I don’t have that date. It seems to be a program that is working well. It is almost fully subscribed, so we expect that when we start our energy division and we start to have more communications with Arctic Energy Alliance and its clientele, we expect that all of the money that we give to Arctic Energy Alliance will be fully subscribed. Thank you.

I would just like to also add that the Housing Corporation will be building duplexes in Fort Simpson. There are three duplexes now slated for Fort Simpson and for all of the Nahendeh there will be eight duplexes being built for future decentralized positions. These are market positions and this is what we will be looking at. When these houses go on the market, that will be an opportunity for positions that will be decentralized to use those houses for accommodations. Thank you.

Yes. We have been advised by Nogha Enterprises in discussions that they will be submitting some information to us on the description of their project and that there would be a discussion continued between Public Works and Services and Nogha Enterprises in Fort Simpson. Thank you.

In addition to the internship that we have, the plan is to certainly connect with the people who are university students or college students who are graduating, other students who are in post-secondary who are finishing up their post-secondary education to come back and work for the NWT. I can ensure that the deputy minister of Human Resources is in touch with other deputy ministers from all of the departments to see what jobs are available that would match with students who are currently finishing up their post-secondary studies.