Wendy Bisaro

Mr. Chair, that seems like a heck of a lot of money for a vehicle. I guess the $65,000, is that sort of a standard price for a vehicle this size, or is this a speciality vehicle, apart from the size of it that will carry eight people? Is it speciality in that it has extra security measures or extra safety measures? Is it bulletproof, says my colleague.

It just seems like that’s an awful lot of money. I would have presumed we could get a vehicle of that size and that capability for, I don’t know, 10 or 20 thousand dollars less. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

That’s good. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thanks, Mr. Chair. I just have a question with regard to the Gwich’in Park Lake access road. I know we have a program within Transportation for access roads. I’m wondering why – this is obviously a road issue – it’s in this department as opposed to being in the Department of Transportation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Next in line is Health and Social Services. We would like to leave Health and go to the Department of Transportation.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks for those explanations. Just a follow-up question. If it’s likely that we are going to see expenditures for lab equipment in each year, the background information that we got did not show expenditures in following years. It simply shows the expenditure for this particular year.

Could I maybe get an explanation as to why, if we are going to spend $70,000 or $100,000 every year, we know that for the next foreseeable 10 years, why it’s not projected in the documents that we were given? Thank you.

Good to hear that. I know that building definitely needs it. That helps me understand the expense.

The other question I have is the next item in the list and it’s public housing, or PH, public housing, housing replacement reserve. I don’t remember seeing that in other descriptions of expenditures. I wonder if I could get an explanation or is this a normal practice for us to have a reserve situation and what is this referencing in Yellowknife?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I might be on the wrong page. Next page, thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There is just one section, the infrastructure contributions to communities here in this department and I have to state, I think I stated in my opening remarks to the budget, as well, and I have stated here in this department, that communities have been funded for their capital infrastructure at the same level for far too many years. If I look at the background information that we are provided, the government is proposing to keep communities at the same infrastructure funding level for the next two or three or four years to come. That is a real concern for me.

Our...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to make a general comment and reiterate the comments I made in my opening remarks to the budget itself. In general, we don’t have enough public housing units in the NWT in any of our communities. Particularly here in Yellowknife, we have a huge wait-list for public housing, we have a huge wait-list for assisted living housing and so on. I would encourage the Housing Corporation to seriously consider finding a way to increase the number of units of public housing that we have. I know that we are losing money through the CMHC declining funding, but we need...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table a document, entitled “Draft Ombudsman Act for the Northwest Territories.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.