Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, yes, everything is where everything is supposed to be on this project and the land has now been reverted back to Municipal and Community Affairs and I believe they’re having discussions with the municipality. Thank you.
I raised the point and I noticed that the demolition went very well for the department. They had some good discussions. Actually, a lot of people showed up, surprisingly to the contractor, just maybe because he thought there was going to be maybe a dozen people showing up to work. Actually it was just over 50 people that showed up and wanted to work. So it went very well. So I’d like to congratulate the department for being flexible and open to a good possibility. I believe that the same type of discussions now are happening in Fort Good Hope with the old Chief T’Selehye School and I hope things go well with them there. Is it possible for the department to provide me with a brief report as to these two demolition projects in my region, for my own curiosity, and use them for reference in case I get calls from constituents as to the work projects? Thank you.
Both demolition projects that we had on the schedule for last year went very well. It was well received by the communities, it generated a lot of employment and it also allowed for recycling to happen with a number of the products that came from the school. In terms of what the status of the Fort Good Hope School is, we are right now at the stage where we’re doing an assessment of the facility. We’re doing some environmental testing to see what types of hazardous materials are in the facility and we plan to move forward with the same goals in mind of doing the demolition on this facility and then trying to maximize employment and recycling. Hopefully things will go as well as they did in the other two communities. Thank you.
Would the Minister comment as to the request of the reports? I’m not too sure what details of the reports he can provide. If that’s something that he could comment on.
It is our practice to share the information once the reports have been compiled in terms of what hazardous material may be in the building, any outstanding issues that the facility may need to address while doing demolition. So we’d be happy to share that information. We usually do with the contractor that has the contract.
I look forward to at least the Tulita report, Mr. Chair, and hopefully later on the Fort Good Hope report. I wanted to ask the Minister, I know there was an issue with the school in Colville Lake with the washroom facilities and the running water there. I know there was material there, material being ordered to get there and I think it’s already there and waiting to use it. Right now I believe that Colville Lake’s School is still using the honey bucket system and there are other issues that prevent them from hooking up the water lines and the washroom facilities. Can the Minister comment as to what’s going to happen next?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’d be happy to share the summary report on the demolition of the Tulita school with the Member. We’d also be happy to supply information on our findings with the Good Hope school. As to the Colville Lake school, there is a contract that will be going out in this coming fiscal year to install a water tank in the school that would allow us to have running water, and that is being discussed with a local contractor to provide that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister McLeod. We’re on page 7-17, Public Works and Services, which is an activity summary for asset management, operations expenditure summary, $81.881 million.
Agreed.
Next page, 7-18, Public Works and Services. It’s an information item, asset management, active positions.
Agreed.
Moving along to page 7-20 and 7-21, Public Works and Services. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask a couple of questions here. First of all, with regard to the new data centre that’s just been completed, could I get an update on where things are at in terms of occupation of the building? I believe the building itself is finished, but have we moved totally into there or is there still some moving to come? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Guy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member is correct; the building was just recently completed. It went through a fairly long commissioning process because there were a large number of specialized heating and mechanical systems in that building. The building was just finally turned over to us in early February by the contractor, so we achieved substantial completion. We’re now in the process of starting to move server equipment in, put cabling in and migrating the data centre functions over there. We expect to have that part of the project complete late May or early June and then the facility will be fully operational at that time. Thank you.
Thanks very much for that update. Good to hear. I wanted to also go back to the issue of bandwidth and the demands that are being placed on our system, particularly because of education and health. I’d like to ask the Minister or the DM what the plans are for the department to accommodate our ever-expanding needs for IT. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Ms. Gault.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. There’s been a number of initiatives that we’ve been working on, particularly the most recent is with regards to addressing the education requirement for greater access to Internet bandwidth. We have redirected Internet traffic off of our main government network and this has provided additional bandwidth access for the schools and at the same time has relieved the congestion on the DCN for the government, other departments, and in particular for the growing health use of the network particularly for digital X-rays. With the new contract that we are looking at or the new network, we’ll be improving performance right across the network, new technology, particularly in the satellite communities where in order to have education curriculum needs for distance learning, for health tele-speech initiatives, this will provide greater bandwidth for us. We are looking at an overall reduced cost per unit for our bandwidth. We know we have to manage it as a government overall growth, but we anticipate these initiatives will improve both the performance and the quality for the government. Thank you.
Thanks very much for that update. Good to hear. I’m just wondering, in terms of distance education, my understanding is now that it’s well nigh impossible in some places, certainly the smaller communities, for the students to try to do distance, it takes literally up to hours to download the materials that they need for distance learning. With this new system, is that going to be improved? I suspect it probably won’t go away, but will it make it that much easier for particularly high school students to do distance education? Thank you.
There are definitely certainly aspects of the education curriculum that will be improved. There are certain types of distance learning or video conferencing that simply cannot be accommodated due to the latency in the satellite technology. This is why we’re working closely with the schools to understand specifically what kind of applications and education components they are looking for so that together we can determine what we can do from a technology standpoint. We do anticipate there are many of those, but we do know that there are some that we cannot accommodate because of the technical limitation of satellite. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Gault. We’re on page 7-21, Public Works and Services, activity summary, Technology Service Centre, operations expenditure summary, $1.361 million.
Agreed.
Moving along to pages 7-22 and 7-23, Public Works and Services, activity summary, petroleum products, operations expenditure summary, $2.134 million.
Agreed.
Moving along to page 7-24, which is Public Works and Services. It’s an information item, lease commitments - infrastructure.
Agreed.
Moving along to 7-26, Public Works and Services, information item, Technology Service Centre (chargeback).
Agreed.
Next page is 7-27, Public Works and Services. It’s an information item. Mr. Krutko.
I seek unanimous consent to go back to 7-22, petroleum products.
Is committee agreed?
Agreed.
Let’s move back to 7-22. Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I was just asked by my colleague to ask a few questions in regard to the area of petroleum products but more in regard to as we realize the area of supply of wood pellets. It’s getting big in the Northwest Territories and I think that also because petroleum products does provide fuel products to our communities, have they considered by looking at other products that they can bring into the communities such as wood pellets to supply communities with not only diesel fuel and gas but maybe consider wood pellets as an alternative heat source for the communities so people can convert over to wood pellet stoves in their communities and cut down on the cost of fossil fuels? Is this something that the department can consider under petroleum products as another type of material that can be brought into the communities as part of your resupply for fuel products? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister McLeod.
Yes, Mr. Chairman, we are considering other products, more specifically wood pellets, and we are doing the assessment now. It’s 90 percent complete and we will be having the results in April.
I’d like to thank the Minister for that. As government we are putting a lot of money into government retrofits and conversions in regard to public buildings regardless if we’re talking about schools or government facilities in our communities. I think if we’re talking about expanding outwards into the communities, this again is another area that I feel the department of petroleum products can expand in, and more importantly, look at alternative types of fuels and materials. I’d just like to ask the Minister in regard to doing this type of initiative, is it going to be done in-house or are we looking at contracting out to provide the pellets?
Mr. Chair, we have hired outside help. We have a consultant hired to do the analysis and we’re also working with the Arctic Energy Alliance and we are looking at the business case to see if it’s viable. The Member is very adamant about actual numbers and we want to ensure that we have this calculated properly and bring this forward if everything goes right. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, can the Minister tell me exactly when you intend to conclude the study and maybe look at the possibility of either recommendations or consideration of implementing it or bringing it forward to either committee or Members of the Legislative Assembly so that we can see, again, where we are going to consider alternative fuel sources for communities? Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, the study is ongoing right now. We have expectations to be finalized in April. Then we will do an analysis of what the findings are and decide on the next steps from there.
Thank you. Page 7-23, Public Works and Services, activity summary, petroleum products, operations expenditure summary, $2.134 million.
Agreed.
Prior to going back, we had just concluded 7-26, so we are now on 7-27, Public Works and Services, information item, Technology Service Centre (chargeback), active positions. Mr. Krutko
Mr. Chairman, in regards to chargebacks, again, with the advancement in telehealth and telemedicine and the possibility of improving health care services in our communities, I think it is important that we have either technicians on the ground or technicians working within the different departments to ensure that we are able to enhance that program and deliver on it, because from what we have seen in communities I have been in in the health centres, in Fort Liard and elsewhere, and talking to the nursing staff that had new equipment brought in, it really improves the delivery of health care. Again, I think it is important that we develop the bandwidth, but more importantly, making sure that we have someone with the technical services such as the Department of Public Works to ensure that we have the people there, like the technicians and whatnot, to provide that. I would just like to know where we are working with the Department of Health and Social Services in regards to expanding our systems by way of telehealth in our communities in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, we certainly agree with the Member’s comments about the TSC and the services and especially in the area of health, improving services to our smaller communities. We do provide support across the board. Usually the health authorities are in a position to have their own staff on board to help them with the technical side of the repairs or upgrades and things of that nature, but we also provide broad support to all of the communities.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. We are on 7-27, Public Works and Services, information item, Technology Service Centre (chargeback), active positions.
Agreed.
Page 7-28, it is also an information item, Public Works and Services, Public Stores Revolving Fund.
