Tom Beaulieu

Thank you. 2009-10 our deferred maintenance was booked at $470 million. As of today, deferred maintenance backlog is at $290 million.

Thank you. We have not completed a complete evaluation and cost estimate on the damage that may have been incurred by the Louis Cardinal ferry during the time we were attempting to continue to run it round season. We did put $400,000 worth of capital into the ferry in order to make it possible to run all season. Thank you.

The change is in procurement, the Technology Services Centre and also in property management, office space and so on. As far as more detail in those three areas, I’d like to go to Director Steve Lewis to give you a more detailed response in those three areas. Thank you.

Thank you. I will get more detail with my deputy, but the total expenditure in 2012-13, of which we were drawing the $1.48 million from, was $28,793,460.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my immediate right is Paul Guy, deputy minister of Public Works and Services; to my far right is Laurie Gault, director of the Technology Service Centre; to my left, Steve Lewis, director of corporate services. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present the Department of Public Works and Services’ main estimates for the fiscal year 2014-15.

The department’s main estimates propose an operations expenditure budget of $108.9 million for 2014-15, an increase of 4 percent over 2013-14. This increase can be attributed to the following activities:

increased funding to deliver essential support services in the areas of infrastructure operations, general purpose office accommodations, contracts and records management associated with the devolution of federal programs, and

funding to support the...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Very quickly, I’ll start off with the ferry, asked by MLA Blake, the Louis Cardinal ferry. The department is conducting a review of what has occurred at the ferry, trying to close the gap completely between the spring season and the winter season so that we’re able to move traffic through there every day. We were not successful in that, but we managed to get the heavy vehicles moving across the Mackenzie at Tsiigehtchic in 30 days as opposed to what was normally about an 80-day shutdown.

This year we have plans to discuss with the community… Some of the people had asked...

Every two years. Thank you. My understanding is they occur every two years. The evaluation is done by the Department of Human Resources, working with the various departments. Thank you.

Yes, Madam Chair, I would.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The morale of the GNWT workforce is very important to the Government of the Northwest Territories. We do surveys with the staff and usually there is quite a tremendous uptake. I know that the Department of Health did their own survey with the authorities in the past. We do surveys with GNWT staff and ask those questions about whether individuals consider their jobs to be rewarding, if they’re satisfied with their supervisor, if they’re happy with the way things are at work. If there are any areas where they have concerns, those are the types of things we try to capture...