Tom Beaulieu

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would be pleased to do the communications with the community, keeping the community advised on how things are moving forward, getting their input, consulting with them and, of course, also working with the Department of Health and Social Services as we will as a government go together to consult to ensure that what the community wants is what the community gets.

Thank you. The issue with the land and location has been resolved. I don’t know the exact location, but perhaps the deputy minister can add to this in a minute.

As far as the communications, we will work with the department and Health and Social Services to make sure that as the project moves forward, we’re communicating with the leadership in Fort Simpson.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The majority of the budget for the capital cost for the new shop in Fort Simpson is slated for 2015-16. We have spent some money already on that capital project and there will be some money spent in 2016-17, as well, but as I indicated, the majority of it will be in this fiscal year that we’re talking about today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The deferred maintenance budget of $5 million is in the capital and we also have $3 million in O and M in deferred maintenance, as the Members are aware. The infrastructure deficit is impacted a bit by deferred maintenance. Deferred maintenance essentially is on infrastructure that is already in place; however, it prevents that from becoming infrastructure deficit by us doing midlife work. Also, when there is time for items that have been deferred, that is the program for deferred, then we then do the work on the building. So we have been able to reduce our deferred...

Mr. Chair, I do.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Hay River dredging was not on the agenda because it was the meeting of the Ministers of Transportation and I didn’t have an opportunity to speak with her. But in any event, we should be talking to the Minister responsible for Fisheries and Oceans or the Minister responsible for Supply and Services, which is the Minister responsible for the Coast Guard. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With me today is Shirley Desjardins, deputy minister of Human Resources, and Michelle Beard, director of corporate affairs.

The Department of Transportation does not have that type of reimbursement program. Thank you.

The department has done some debriefing meetings with the Town of Inuvik, the community of Fort McPherson, Inuvik Gas Ltd., people that provide the energy to the community. Internally, we know that we have dealings with the Power Corp and we try to have these meetings to debrief amongst each other and see what we can learn from what has occurred since the last season when we were trying to operate the ferry right up until the winter road was open.

I’m more than willing to meet with the federal Minister responsible, although I can’t set his or her schedule, but I will have the department make contact with the Minister responsible to check to see if it is a possibility that we could have that discussion Minister to Minister or department head to department head to see if something can be done with the dredging in the Hay River port.