Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Minister responsible for Public Works and Services, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Taking buildings apart or demobilizing facilities that are of no more value to our government or communities is something that we do on a regular basis. We have fairly rigid guidelines of how to dispose of material. There are safety issues that we have to, of course, follow and contaminated material, as the Member has mentioned, has to go to, in a lot of cases, places that are designated for such use.
The old Deh Cho Hall is a huge building. It has lots of materials that can and should be used for the community for other projects. It has some really good lumber in there, once we strip away the boarding and plywood. There is lots of structural lumber. I heard that all the material will be destroyed and I think that’s a shame. I think the community and residents should access it. What can we do to ensure that the community residents can access any salvageable material at the Deh Cho Hall?
In a lot of instances there is some discussion with the communities as to how the contractor awarded with the contract would dispose of it. We would make the necessary arrangements. In the case of Deh Cho Hall I’m not sure as to the specifics regarding how that is going to be handled. I would have to confirm that. But I certainly would agree that dismantling the Deh Cho Hall would provide a lot of lumber for a lot of cabins around Fort Simpson and the surrounding communities. I will commit to the Member to provide that information.
The Minister gets it exactly. I’d like the department to provide an assessment and I’d like to see the report, too, that we can salvage some of the material, and to ensure that assessment is being done as they deliberate any future contracts with the demolition of the Deh Cho Hall. Can the Minister assure that assessment about salvageable materials be done as soon as possible?
I would like to assure the Member that we have heard his comments. We will follow up on this project as we move forward and incorporate some of his concerns. I believe we have received similar comments from the Fort Simpson Dene Council some years ago and they had indicated they wanted to have some input and involvement. We had agreed at the time that we would follow up with them and I’d like to be able to do so and keep the Member informed of where we’re going. The budget includes money for demolition, so that’s something that’s going to happen relatively soon.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. That’s exactly part of it too. I look at that project as a make-work for Fort Simpson. If we just send in equipment to tear down the building, that’s not doing anything to help improve our economy. Taking it apart and saving salvageable material can be good for Fort Simpson and for anybody who wants to access the material that’s there. Once again, if the Minister will provide and ensure that there is an assessment done, that there is salvageable material and not just tear it down quickly for the sake of tearing it down.
I share the Member’s sentiments on this issue. We, of course, have an obligation to stay within our budget that we have set for demolition. We have safety issues and contamination disposal regulations that we have to follow. But we’re able to meet all those requirements and I’ll be happy to ensure our staff has the discussion with the Member and the leadership in Fort Simpson as to the best way to move forward on this project.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Transportation. I think the Minister has, obviously, some explaining to do to both Members of the House and the public when it was just a couple of weeks ago that the Minister stood up in this House and replied to some questions that I had for him at the time, stating that the new design on the Deh Cho Bridge would be less expensive to construct and they were still under the impression that the project could get completed on budget even though there was a delay of one year. Here we are two weeks later and the Minister is stating now that the project is going to cost $182 million.
There still is no, in my view, firm design. There still is no signed contract with the new contractor. I am just wondering how the Minister can explain that he can put a number out there like $182 million with all these moving parts still in existence. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; two weeks ago we were very confident that we had the makings of a deal that was going to fall within the target and goal of what we had set as a budget. Since then, there have been more negotiations with the contractor that we are talking about. In fact, I should mention that who we are negotiating with right now, today, yesterday had brought back new numbers. We have all the moving parts, as the Member has indicated, together, including lost revenue because of the delay in the construction schedule of one year, the deferral of the design, of course, and things of that nature and outstanding claims that we have to settle. It is summed up to a number, an excess of what we budgeted by $15 million. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in the press release that the government has issued this morning, they also talk about a new project management team. I would like to ask the Minister what is the future of the former project management team on the Deh Cho Bridge Project. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as a result of a number of discussions for the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, we felt that we needed to bring in a new team to provide project management on this job. We have since agreed and notified the people that were on the project management team that we will be bringing in a new company and new players to fill those roles. That has been accepted. We are now in the process of having discussions, how to do the transition and continue to make sure that we have a smooth transition as we move forward. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I am just wondering why it has gotten to this stage, why something wasn’t done further in the past. We should have done something about this a long time ago. I would like to ask the Minister, is it going to cost the Government of the Northwest Territories anything to remove the players from the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and that former project management team? Are we going to be paying anything for that? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I can’t predict what will happen in the future, but as of now, our agreement is to terminate the services after transition period, after certain tasks are completed, which will happen in the next little while. The Member is correct; there was concern and he’s raised it in this House that there was concern over how the project was being managed. We also had concerns some time ago. We felt that we needed to wait and see how things unfolded. We also needed a pause in construction so that we can start the next phase before we sat down and had those discussions with the Bridge Corporation. This is what we have done. It has resulted in a new project management team. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess ultimately we are going to be paying the price for the poor performance of that project management team. I would like to ask the Minister today whether or not the Government of the Northwest Territories is going to have any legal recourse with that former project management team on the increased costs and the failure to deliver this project, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I think all the players involved feel they have a recourse in terms of legal challenges. We are no different. I am assuming that we will see the fallout as the dust settles on this project. At this point, we are focussed on trying to get the bridge completed. We are really in a compressed time frame to get that done. We are, as I have stated, negotiating right now with a number of the players, the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, the lenders and also a company that we hope is not going to be influenced by our discussion here today, but we are very close to concluding those discussions. We feel that these numbers are solid. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regards to my Member’s statement, one thing we continue to see is have and have-not communities in the Northwest Territories, especially the small and remote communities, which were the reason for a lot of communities not being able to take advantage of the stimulus funding in regards to Building Canada funds. The reason that we get this is because they have substantial deficits or they are unable to identify matching funds.
Mr. Speaker, I, for one, feel that this government should reach out to those communities and try to find ways to ensure that they are able to receive federal capital dollars through a workable relationship with this government.
Mr. Speaker, in the previous government, there was a community infrastructure fund which was put forward by this government. About $30 million was given to all communities in the Northwest Territories based on a formula of base plus funding. I would like to ask the Deputy Premier, why is this government not looking at a system that is fair, transparent and that everybody can benefit when it comes to federal funding?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Deputy Premier, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That deals with a specific program area under the mandate of the Minister of Public Works and Services. I want to defer that question to him.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Minister of Public Works and Services, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct; a lot of communities have felt that they are really challenged to have input in some of the stimulus money that came in very short order to this government. The program was quite compressed from a seven-year period. With very limited notice, we were required to put in two years’ worth of projects.
The Member has also referenced a Community Capacity Fund that was provided to the communities on a formula basis. It works quite well. That was the first area that we wanted to discuss with the federal government. The Minister of MACA did bring that concept up of formula funding for Building Canada funding and also stimulus program funding. That kind of arrangement was rejected by the federal government. They felt it wasn’t something they wanted to do. We had to resolve to asking each community to come forward, to bring projects forward that were either on our government capital plan or on the community capital plan or projects that they were thinking about and had somewhat formulated and priced out. That is the rationale of how we ended up. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, one of the main reasons is because the communities either had substantial deficits, which tells me that they are in trouble. I think that we have to find a way with working with those communities that are in trouble, finding a way that we can match funds with them or have funds. Right now what I see going on with the government is that they have surplus funds in certain projects that they are going to bring forward and they are going to subsidize certain projects which are presently on the books. For me, that is not fair. I would like to know, what is this government doing to work with those communities that have a deficit situation so that they can take advantage of these federal infrastructure funds?
Mr. Speaker, once again the Member is correct. There are a number of communities that were in a deficit situation historically for long periods of time. Given our previous method of allocating dollars, I am assuming that this is changing. I get the sense from my discussions, at least, that communities are better prepared as a result of the New Deal funding and their larger formula funding dollars that are being invested in the communities. However, that is going to take time. In this case, not everybody was ready to put a project forward.
Although we have probably the biggest capital budget in our government’s history over the last year, this year and possibly next year, there are still communities that need assistance. I don’t speak for MACA, but MACA has committed to working with these communities. They have people in the different jurisdictions helping them. Of course, we have to recognize that planning and making decisions on their own or for their own communities is not something that everybody has been doing up to now. It is relatively new. It is going to take some adjustment. I hope that is going to happen fairly quickly. Thank you.
Thank you. I’d like to ask the Minister if he could give me a breakdown of exactly which communities received these federal dollars, what size the communities are and out of the 33 communities in the Northwest Territories, which ones weren’t able to take advantage of these programs. Can I have that in writing? Thank you.
Thank you. I’ll have to commit for the Minister of MACA, but there is I think roughly around 47 projects right across the Northwest Territories with the Building Canada funding and the stimulus funding and he’s listening so he should know, but we’ll commit, he’ll commit or I’ll commit for him, to providing that information to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think that it’s time that this government did an assessment of this program and federal programs and see exactly who is benefiting from them and also who is losing out on these programs simply because they’re having some financial problems or they don’t have the capacity to do it, because I think from small communities that is one of the core problems we see in our communities, is they don’t have capacity, they don’t have the human resources, they can’t take advantage of federal programs. So as a government I’d like to request from the Minister if they can commit to looking at that scenario and see exactly what we can do better to improve the programs next time around for all communities.
Thank you. What the Member is speaking about doesn’t only challenge the communities, it challenges our government when there is a huge injection of capital into our jurisdiction with a very short time frame to spend it. It really challenges us. I’ve conveyed it, the Minister of MACA has conveyed those concerns to the federal government, that we need a stable long-term agreement that would flow capital dollars so we can have everybody take part and have a piece of the dollars invested in their areas and in the areas that they want to see invested. The Minister of MACA has informed me that they’ve also put some money aside in their budgets to do just as the Member is requesting, to help the communities so that they’re prepared to move forward with other capital dollars that may come up free. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister of Education. When we reviewed the Department of Education budget I asked a number of questions of the Minister and his officials with regard to inclusive schooling and how we fund inclusive schooling to our education authorities and I have a few more questions for him following up on my Member’s statement.
The Minister was presented with evidence from Yellowknife Education District No. 1 about a year ago, of a high number of severe special needs students within that district. I’d like to ask the Minister what his response was to the district officials at that time. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We did receive a letter from various school boards identifying the costs of dealing with special needs. It is across the board in the Northwest Territories, not just one organization, but, Mr. Speaker, we did increase the inclusive schooling. Since 2005 until today there’s been a substantial increase in various locations within the school divisions. So, Mr. Speaker, we are looking at this very closely and we are currently dealing with enrolment issues that are challenging us right now and I think we need to focus in that area as well. But at the same time we’re currently looking at this and we’ll be discussing this in April at the chairs’ meeting. Mahsi.
Thanks to the Minister. My point is not so much that enrolments are going down and it’s not so much that we necessarily have to increase funding. I don’t think that’s what perhaps the districts are asking for, but there is an unequal distribution of very severely high needs, very severely special needs students within districts and the allocation of students is not even across the board. My point is, then, I think the point of YK1 is that the funding needs to be reallocated and redistributed so that severely impacted special needs students, the higher number in districts get more funding. I know the Minister has said that they’re considering the issue, and again, he said that it relies on enrolments, but I’d like to know from the Minister how this consideration that he’s talking about and the consideration that’s going to be in April, how that translates into action. What is his department actually doing? Thank you.
Mahsi. We need to get the facts from all the education board levels. We are gathering the facts from our department with the superintendents of each school board. The Member talked about unequal distribution. So we need to identify that. What is she referring to? Is it just one school board that is saying this or is it all school boards? So those are the types of discussions we’re going to have in April when I meet with education chairs. So this is the important discussion that we’re going to be having and on a going forward basis we need to gather all the facts and also identify enrolment, because the number has gone down and that also has an implication on the funding as well. So we’ll continue to discuss this on a going forward basis. Mahsi.
Thank you. I appreciate that the Minister has made a commitment to gather facts, but I think the problem is that he’s gathering facts based from a very subjective viewpoint. Each individual education authority, I believe, is being asked to provide this information and the point of YK1 is that we need to have an independent study, there needs to be an impartial gathering of the number of high needs students in each jurisdiction. So I guess with the suggestion from YK1 to do an impartial gathering of data to get at the actual facts, will the Minister consider doing that? Thank you.
Mahsi. I think that it’s important to highlight the actual true facts that the school boards will be providing. We’ve heard over and over not to hire any more consultants. We have our in-house people that can certainly deal with these challenges that are at the forefront, but at the same time working with the chairs and also the superintendents and they have valuable information that we can certainly use. So, Mr. Speaker, this certainly will be discussed in the April meeting. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To the Minister, I appreciate that the department is willing to do this in house and that the superintendents and chairs are providing information, but if I were chair of a board, it would certainly be to my advantage to pad my numbers and to indicate that special needs students who aren’t severe may be severe and that’s why I’m suggesting that there needs to be an impartial person doing this gathering. So to the Minister, I’m not suggesting a study. Again, would he commit to having an impartial, outsider gather this data? Thank you.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. We trust the board chairs and we trust the superintendents’ information that will be provided to us on the numbers that we need to work with. We will continue to work closely with them, because we provide funding to them and there’s accountability attached to that as well. So, Mr. Speaker, on a going forward basis in April we’ll be discussing and we’ll develop an action plan from there. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I raised the issue of the health of our young people and ways that we could improve that. Certainly I’d like to think of it as a way that we could develop a strategy over the next little while and certainly launch an ambitious plan that would be relatively cost effective but deliver great results, and that plan is coming up with a strategy for multivitamins for our youth and it could be implemented in such a way that day homes could access this, daycares and certainly provide it to our school districts so our young kids can have access to these type of important nutrients that multivitamins provide. So to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, I’d like to ask today, because we don’t have one of these programs in place, would the Minister be willing to investigate the cost of this type of program and to see if it would be feasible if we could introduce something like this. Once again, I’d like to say, because there was a program like this in the Northwest Territories many, many years ago and I think it was quite successful. Thank you.
