Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The motion is in order and being distributed. To the motion.
Question.
Question is being called.
---Carried
Order, committee. We’re on page 6, Transportation, operations expenditures, highways, not previously authorized, $15.9 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Transportation, operations expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, $15.9 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 7, Supplementary Appropriation No. 4. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My apologies for missing the page earlier, but I’d like to ask the same question I asked earlier with regard to the planning study for owned versus leased office space in Yellowknife. I do agree that the study needs to be done. My question basically has to do with why this particular expense is so urgent that it needs to be included in a supplementary appropriation, why it can’t wait until our next infrastructure budget. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The big issue is of timing. Otherwise, if we wait until next fall we will have lost a valuable six months and we only have, I think, 19 months left in our term. Our hope is to advance this and to get it on the work being done as quickly as possible, given the projected savings of possibly up to $100 million and our concern about being fiscally responsible. Thank you.
I’m not totally sure I follow the timing. I think I’m hearing the Minister say that the planning needs to be done now so the construction budget can be included in the next infrastructure budget. If I could have that clarified, please.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. I’d like to call on the Minister of Finance, Minister Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The intent is to get enough work done that we can, in fact, come forward through the capital planning process this coming fall with enough work done to make a decision about next steps. So the intent is not to lose that time. Thank you.
I do understand. I guess I just have difficulty… I’m still having difficulty understanding why the construction needs to be in this next infrastructure budget which will come up this fall. Can it not wait another year? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Michael McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, the planning study is estimated to take around four months to complete, and we are going to be looking at incorporating this project in the capital acquisition plan for this year, 2010. The planning study needs to be done by the end of June. There is some sense of urgency. Many of our leases, up to 70 percent of our leases are coming up for renewal. Present market rates and the conditions indicate that the rising lease prices are likely to stay very high and, therefore, we’re going to see significant increased costs associated with renewals. The study that was done, the lease versus to own analysis, concluded that savings are considerable, so there is some sense of urgency to do this project.
Thanks to the Minister for that explanation. I had forgotten the information about the timing of leases. So thank you. That’s all I have.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Page 7, committee, Public Works and Services, capital investment expenditures, asset management, not previously authorized, $15,000.
Agreed.
Total department, not previously authorized, $15,000.
Agreed.
Page 8, Health and Social Services. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question here, as well, on the laboratory information system replacement. I mentioned in my opening remarks that I questioned that this is a project that is urgent. Could I get a timeline for this project? I know that these funds, there are some funds being asked for in this supplementary appropriation, there are some funds which are being suggested for next year’s capital budget and, I believe, the year after, but I wonder if I could get an explanation of the timeline for the project, when it’s intended to start, what the urgency is to get started, you know, within the next, obviously, couple of months, I presume, et cetera. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Lee.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member for the question. The urgency to make this capital investment at this time is because we need this money to replace the laboratory information system. We are responding to the vendor, General Electric, who has given us notice that they would discontinue supporting this system and gave us two short extensions until November of this year, I believe, or support as of December 2, 2009. So we need to make sure that we have a system in place that’s reliable, because this is essential to our lab service. It deals with reading and connecting all the lab results, and if the system breaks down and not have it replaced, we could possibly face having to send the lab tests to other jurisdictions and it could cost us as much money as it is required to spend now. Thank you.
That didn’t totally answer my question in terms of timeline, but prior to asking that again, I note in the briefing note it says that GE told us in 2007 that system support wouldn’t be provided after December of 2009. So that’s, if it’s the middle of 2007, that’s at least a year and a half for this project to come forward and for the department to ask for approval. So I’m a little taken that it’s now coming before us and it’s urgent. I can accept that it’s urgent, but I think there’s a difficulty with planning or a lack of planning on the part of the department here.
To the Minister, I’d like to know when this project is supposed to start. The briefing says we have two six-month extensions, so I guess that’s to the end of the year 2010. So when would this project start and when is it expected to be completed? Thank you.
Before I begin the Member’s new set of questions, I just want to say the Member is right from the last question that there are two parts to this funding request, the biggest being what’s in front of us now under capital funding for $904,000.
I also want to address why, when we knew this for a year and a half or so, why did this become urgent and is it lack of planning on the department’s part. Mr. Chairman, the answer to that is this came as a surprise to us, but it does happen when a vendor decides that they will not support software, and, obviously, software, the support is important, that there’s always the ongoing check and if there are bugs, that they will give us maintenance. They have decided to stop doing that. The department did make a proposal to an interdepartmental committee that looks at IT investments such as this, but given this is such a large project, we were asked to look at all options available, including continuing to do a -- there’s a technical language for that -- doing something more compatible to what we were using already or should we go to another program or looking at all of the funding options. That’s why we did not make the ’09-10 funding schedule and we are going into having to come back for a supp.
We were also asked to look for some internal funding and we were able to… The total cost project for this is about $1.7 million. We’re asking for $904,000. We were able to find some funding from within plus the money that the IT committee gave us.
I think there were some third questions. Right. The vendor told us that they would no longer support after December ’09, but they gave us a conditional extension until the end of December, but they would not give us full technical support. They would just have it on, so to speak. So we are at risk of not changing this as soon as possible. At the same time, they’re charging us a premium for that conditional use. Whereas the normal charge would be about $58,000, they’re charging us $230,000 for using this service conditionally.
The last part I think that’s of value to the Members is that this system is hooked up to Canada Health Infoway where we get funding from the federal government, and there are some milestones that we need to meet. We need to have this to meet that, in order for us to get reimbursed for about $700,000. So there are many reasons why this couldn’t come right away and why it is imperative that we get this approved and get the project going as soon as possible. Thank you.
I just want to thank the Minister for that explanation. I have no further questions.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Committee, we are on page 8, Supplementary Appropriation No. 4, Health and Social Services, capital investment expenditures, health services programs, not previously authorized, $904,000.
Agreed.
Total department, not previously authorized, $904,000.
Agreed.
Page 9. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am trying to figure out this $300,000 in and out from one department to another. Could I just get an explanation from the Minister, like what happens physically? Like, there is one department that has 300 that doesn’t need it but needs 15 so they get 15 then does that money physically transfer to another department?
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. I will call on Mr. Sandy Kalgutkar.
Mr. Chairman, the negative $300,000 is related to a transfer back into the Department of Transportation under operations expenditures for the Yellowknife bypass road. The Yellowknife bypass road is voted as infrastructure contribution to the City of Yellowknife, which is operations expenditures funding. The $300,000 is coming out of the Kakisa Bridge Project, which is a capital investment funding. So it is a transfer between two votes; that is why it is showing up twice. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is just more confusing actually, because I was looking at page 7 and seeing that there is a negative $300,000 there as well, so that is okay. I just can’t figure it out, but I am sure I will if I look at it long enough.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu, I am with you. So, committee, we are on page 9. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Maybe I will just give this a shot. There is a negative on the Transportation for the construction of the new air terminal building in Tuktoyaktuk, there is a negative $300,000 under Public Works and Services, and then if you go to page 9, the page we are on, it shows up as transferred from the Department of Public Works and Services, $300,000. We agree with that, but then what Mr. Kalgutkar is saying is something about the bypass road having impacted that. I think that was the confusion. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Minister Miltenberger.
Minister McLeod would like to shed light on this. Thank you.
Thank you. I would like to call on Minister Michael McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, what we are doing here is we are transferring some dollars out of the Public Works Deferred Maintenance Program that we had identified to do some work on the air terminal building and it will now go into the Department of Transportation and will be matched up with stimulus dollars that we have been approved for. So it is a 50-50 cost arrangement and since we had money already in our budget to do the work prior to knowing that this was a project that was being considered for replacement, we are transferring it over. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. That satisfies you, Mr. Beaulieu?
Thank you. Committee, we are on page 9, Transportation, capital investment expenditures, airports, not previously authorized, $300,000.
Agreed.
Highways, not previously authorized, $1.5 million.
Agreed.
Total department, not previously authorized, $1.8 million.
