Debates of June 1, 2005 (day 6)

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, when departments have changes to projects there are provisions within the Financial Administration Manual that lay out what need to be done and we would use that as the tool in informing Members that would be affected by changes to projects. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. For our discussion this afternoon, I don’t have that manual at hand. Maybe I can sort of narrow this down a little bit. Are there elements of timing, like when a department knows that something is going to be off schedule by so many months or perhaps it will have to be deferred to the next year, maybe it’s been cancelled, is there a time frame that says this one we had better raise a flag and send a message out there? For instance, is there a dollar amount that says this program is off by a certain percentage or dollar amount and that is the trigger? Could the Minister at least give us a sense of those two things? What’s the timing trigger and what’s the dollar trigger that signals that Members should be told?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as projects are established and begin to move forward, if there are changes to those projects, Ministers of the appropriate departments would notify Members in writing of the proposed changes, whether a project value would increase or decrease. Normally, though, if a project is not proceeded with but is still on the books with no changes to it but for one reason or another it hasn’t proceeded, no notification comes forward until the formal notification as we are here through our capital carryover process. Then all the projects that did not proceed or were not completed in the time frame are requested in this manner here. So that process is being used.

Again, as stated earlier, unless it’s a special warrant, the not previously authorized would be we’re requesting authority from this Assembly to proceed with the changes. Beyond that, again, if a project is cancelled there would be notification. If a project is increased there would be notification, or decreased. But for actual projects that did not get off the ground in a time period, it’s probably a more informal process of talking to Members or Members coming down to different Ministers and discussing what may have happened. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Braden.

Okay. So $2.4 million being shifted from an approved project for Yellowknife to a different community is within Cabinet’s tolerance of saying we don’t have to bother telling anybody. Is that true? Have I got that right?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, to try to make this a little more clear, we are bringing this before this Assembly for approval. This money needs to be approved if it’s going to proceed in that manner or, if it doesn’t get approved, then the department has to go back and identify where it would come up with those costs if it was going to proceed with that project. The money is still identified in the books still under the Territorial Treatment Centre, but the location will, if this goes to plan that has been discussed and approved at the first level and now needs approval by the Assembly, if it’s accepted it will be in another location. It will still be a Territorial Treatment Centre, but the approval process needs to happen at this point. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Braden.

You know, okay, I’m really trying to keep an open mind and an open pair of ears on this, but, Mr. Chairman, the department asked for permission to spend $2.4 million in Yellowknife. It could have well been any other project, any other community. Then along came, for whatever reason, a change in plan, but nothing was said. We approved that project to happen in Yellowknife. Now they’re coming back without any prior information or notice or advisories to us at all and saying we want to re-approve the same project -- in fact, for more money, almost 50 percent more money -- in a different community. I don’t want to get into the specifics of this yet, Mr. Chairman, because we will later on, but the process, the protocol, the conventions that we need to continue operating in a consensus style of government are being disabused.

Abused.

Abused, disabused. We’re being badly let down in this case. That is the point I want to make. I want to ask the Minister, does he accept that the normal conventions and the rules that we understand we’re operating under here were not followed in this case? Does the Minister accept that the rules were not followed in this case?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Can I just remind Members that we should refer to the general comments or the Minister’s statement? Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I guess the Members may want to debate the merit of moving the project, but to try to call into question the process that’s established in saying we dislike the fact that the project or the idea of the project, the money being moved is in question. Let’s have the debate around the merit, the value of moving the project from one community to another. The process is identified. If the plan goes ahead, the dollars would be coming back to the Assembly, to the committees in the 2006-07 business plan to have that project established. What they’re seeking at this point is the planning dollars to see if they can start it this year. If that is not approved, then it would be up to the department to find out if in fact they do have the money to proceed or if there’s the will to proceed at that point. The process is established, we’re coming forward, the project has been laid out. Maybe the Minister has missed a meeting with the committee on clearly identifying the establishment. But if you look at the dollars that were approved, this goes right back to 2002-03 main estimates capital acquisition plan. Children’s Territorial Treatment Centre, the total amount identified at that point was $2.7 million, which was carried over to 2003-04 and the total amount at that point for expenditures on Territorial Treatment Centre were targeted at $3.3 million, and $907,000 of those dollars were expended or were planned and carried over into 2004-05, and further identified in 2004-05 was $2.4 million.

So this project was laid out at that point. When the substantiation for the capital carryover was made and this being for the 2003-04 year carryovers to 2004-05, it was identified that an alternate location was being looked at. That was identified to FMBS that the carryover was being carried over, but they were beginning to look at an alternate location. Again, it is my understanding that committees were informed that as this money kept being identified and carried over, that the department was looking at other possible solutions to what was initially in place, about replacing the existing facility. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. May I just remind the Members again, we are on general comments. I would ask that Members hold their detail questions until we get to the appropriate page in the detail booklet. Thank you for your cooperation. Are there any further general comments? Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I just want to ask some questions, not on a specific item, although obviously reference will be made to it. On this issue of the government coming back to us to approve something that has been approved before in principle, I think that as a budgeting process that has to be reviewed.

Mr. Chairman, we have a rule in this House where normally we are not allowed to revisit things that have been decided on. We are not allowed to revisit a new motion unless it is to be rescinded. So why is it possible, why is that part of the process that a capital project as big as over $2 million, the government comes here, as I stated earlier, and they fight tooth and nail for every cent? It is almost impossible for us to move anything unless we delete something. They convince us that they have to do this. Every capital project is essential, it’s needed, it makes sense, it has gone through the FMB process and we vote on it. So now we are told that the money that was approved because they needed it was just held back.

Mr. Chair, I can understand how for many projects the government needs to have flexibility. I can see if you want to build a school, because the materials couldn’t get there, you couldn’t get the barge. Some disastrous things happen. If that happens so that they have to lapse capital money, they couldn’t build a road or whatever, they should come back to us and tell us why they couldn’t spend that money. They shouldn’t be allowed to just lapse it and come back and want us to re-approve the money that’s already been approved, revisit the expenditure decision because of a political reason. That is the worst use of the power of this Assembly and the political capital we have. The Minister has indicated already that we should argue on the merit of the project, not on the process. I think we should argue about the opposite. I think the Minister, who is normally very sensible and has common sense and is rational about these things, if he could just take himself away from his support for this project I think he could see the wider view that there is something wrong with this process.

It wouldn’t make any sense, Mr. Chair, for us to approve money to renovate a hospital in Inuvik and then they lapse the money and then come back for $2.6 million for us to redo what we have already done. When you are thinking about this project here, the centre in Yellowknife is only six years older than Hay River. I mean there is no merit on why this should be moved other than…and there’s no problem with fixing Yellowknife any more than Hay River. They have been working on that thing for years, but for political reasons they put the money aside, they didn’t spend it and they are saying well we’re just asking you to redo your decisions. I don’t understand why we have to do that. We don’t have to do that for any other situation.

So not going into the specifics of the project, this is something that I’ve learned that just finally clicked for me in the last two days, that we as a Legislature can sit here and approve all of this money and yet we can have no confidence that that will be carried through. In fact, the government doesn’t even have any reason. It can be for political reasons that they could move it. They don’t have to tell us why they cannot renovate this building in Yellowknife. Maybe if they found that it would cost them $10 million to renovate it and we couldn’t do it and they want to come back to us to re-approve it, there’s nothing like that. They are asking us to approve the money that we had already approved to renovate a building that was constructed in 1961 and move it to a building that was constructed in 1957 in Hay River for exactly the same use and at exactly the same cost; incidentally for a lot more money than what it would cost to build a new building, which is another question altogether. It would cost less money for the government to build a new building in Yellowknife for this treatment centre, or Hay River, than the money suggested.

Another thing is this money was approved for $3.3 million. The cost estimate of the renovation was $3.3 million in 1997 and all of a sudden we are talking about $2.4 million which is a lot less. I think if the Minister could just take himself out of the thought that he supports this project because he has to or whatever reason, I think if he really looked at it I think he would have to agree that this doesn’t make sense. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think we just have to look back a couple of years at an incident that is very similar in the nature of what happened and it did, as well, cause an uproar in a number of other communities. When the young offenders’ facilities were moved from their existing location, they were identified in the capital plan and were to be possibly rebuilt in Hay River. At that point a decision was made by the department to proceed on a different lateral and saw the facilities being split and moved to other locations. The young offenders ended up being part of the North Slave Correctional Centre as we have it now and the female section went up to Inuvik. So there’s an example of even a larger scale project that was established in the books and the facility was existing in the community of Hay River at the time, but the department had changed because of other factors and came back. Ultimately, it has to get approved by the Assembly. So there’s an example of some of the changes that occur in the capital plan process.

Once a project has been identified for change or a change has been made at the Cabinet/FMB table, then we will notify the Members. The proposal now has been adopted at the first level, but the money hasn’t changed. The money is still in the books, identified as it was and that is why you find it here in the supplementary appropriation that lays out the plan for this year and future years if accepted by the Assembly. So there are examples of how projects do change from one community to another with the departments that are in charge of them having changed their plan and presenting it to Cabinet and then to the Assembly. So there is an example of how that can happen.

If you’re the Member representing that community, it’s not a very good thing to find that out and know that it was on the books and you can tell people in your community for a number of years that this project is coming and then the year when it’s about to come it doesn’t happen. Things don’t turn out very well and I think most Members at one point or another probably felt a bit of that, whether it’s a delay in the capital program in dust control because there’s not enough money or it’s delayed for another year. There are many examples of that, but notification ultimately comes back to this House for approval if we’re going to move dollars from one project to another project, and that’s what we’re doing here. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I was not here I don’t believe when that happened with the young offenders’ centre and if there was an uproar then, and there should be an uproar now, two wrongs don’t make it right. It was wrong then, it’s wrong now and I don’t think that justifies the Minister’s move on this thing.

My point is we can’t do that. It’s not a proper expenditure in decision-making of government money. The Minister stated some of the reasons why the young offenders' centre had to be moved here. There are, so far, no reasons given whatsoever why it is better to use the Hay River centre over Yellowknife’s centre. In fact, the documents that Minister Miltenberger gave us yesterday state in a briefing note how there are serious concerns about availability of a program. Now two buildings are almost as old as each other. They are almost both 40 years old. There is no reason for this, other than a political move and that cannot be condoned because that can happen to anyone in this Assembly, and I don’t think that’s a fair thing. I don’t think the people out there want us to make decisions about their tax dollars and their capital budget in this way. I think the Minister is probably already aware that there is in the Financial Administration Manual a rule on the budget adjustments and transfers, and it states very specifically there that a department is not allowed to change capital projects that are over $100,000 or 20 percent of the total budget without telling the MLAs or standing committees, and this was not done.

I’m not even talking about just the change here on June 1st, which is three months after we approved our budget. I’m talking about if they were going to not spend $2.1 million, they had an entire year. It was not until November that they decided that they were not going to spend that money in Yellowknife. That is nine months after we approved that budget. There was no indication whatsoever to any of the Members of Yellowknife, the community affected or MLAs affected or their committee. So what remedy is there for the Minister? I think the Minister owes us an apology to start with for having violated the Financial Administration Manual and he should at least accept that there is something wrong with this process. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I guess we’re just going to have to agree to disagree. I don’t think there’s anything that I can state that would be satisfactory to the Member about the moves that have occurred here. The rules have been followed. The rule that she uses and has quoted there is one where we’ve made a decision to transfer, and the decision has been made and then you notify the Members of that change. What we’re doing here is the decision has been made to accept the proposal, which kicks this into gear to come back to this House to say we need your approval for this change. So the money hasn’t been moved at this point, but it is coming back to this House for approval to be moved.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t know if I can ever be able to justify to the satisfaction of the Member the move that’s being requested here. We just have to agree to disagree, I suppose. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Braden, general comments.

On this line of questioning, Mr. Chair, I am looking at part of the Financial Administration Act I believe under FMBS’s authority here regarding budget adjustments and transfers. This is a guideline or a set of rules that was created in November 2003, not that long ago. Copies are being produced and will be circulated shortly, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Lee pointed out a requirement on item 5.4 d) that says, "When a department makes any adjustment to a capital project that significantly affects the scope…$100,000 or 20 percent…the responsible Minister will advise the appropriate MLA or Standing Committee."

Mr. Chair, I’m going to also refer to an earlier section on that under these guidelines, section 5.4, Consultation guidelines for Infrastructure Project Budget Adjustments. "The guidelines represent recommendations with regards to consultation for infrastructure investment budget adjustments. However, departments are expected to exercise sound judgment" -- sound judgment, Mr. Chairman -- "in reporting and consulting on any adjustments, including those that are below the recommended thresholds in the guidelines noted below, especially if the adjustment is of significance to a community." These are FMBS’s own rules. Why weren’t they followed in this instance? Mr. Chairman, from this point on we’re going to go into the specifics of this particular item, which appears later in the budget. I am prepared to go to detail now, but the Minister is going to have to have a pretty good explanation for the need to let go of what I believe is absolutely straightforward, a very clear rule in his own policy manual. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the rules are as he’s read them and as I’ve worked with where transfer has occurred and adjustment has happened. What is happening at this point now is we’re requesting that transfer to happen and that adjustment to be made. The transfer has not happened at this point, adjustment has not happened at this point, the money is still identified under the Territorial Treatment Centre for Yellowknife, but changes to the plan are being brought forward now for the money to be changed to a different project. It’s the Territorial Treatment Centre, but in a different community. So it is brought back for adjustment to that plan. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Detail.

Okay, I’ll allow committee to get your grey binders out. We’re under tab one. We’re going to go over Bill 1, Supplementary Appropriation Act No. 1, 2005-2006, and we’re going to go please to the detail booklet page 5. On page 5, Legislative Assembly, operations expenditures, office of the Clerk, not previously authorized, negative $159,000.

Agreed.

Total department, negative $159,000.

Agreed.

Page 6, Executive, operations expenditures, executive offices, executive offices not previously authorized, negative $362,000.

Agreed.

Beaufort-Delta regional office, $350,000.

Agreed.

Total executive offices, negative $12,000.

Agreed.

Page 7, Executive continued, operations expenditures, Financial Management Board Secretariat, directorate, not previously authorized, $903,000.

Agreed.

Corporate human resources services, $7.061 million.

Agreed.

Client services, not previously authorized, $3.113 million.

Agreed.

Employee relations, not previously authorized, $5.093 million.

Agreed.

Total Financial Management Board Secretariat, $16.170 million.

Agreed.

Thank you. Page 8, Executive continued, operations expenditures, Aboriginal Affairs, Aboriginal Affairs, not previously authorized, $161,000.