Thanks, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Neudorf.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When we entered into the concession agreement, one of the areas we had agreed to work with is to the review of the design during construction. GNWT has that responsibility. We’ve hired advisors, some consultants to facilitate that work for us. So part of the project, part of the $165 million project, there would be a line item there that would talk about design checks. That’s the $800,000 that is on the page here. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Neudorf. Mr. Bromley.
Yeah, I think I understand that. I am just wondering, and I want confirmed, that the Bridge Corporation supplies the dollars to do that to GNWT. Is that correct?
Yes, that’s correct.
Thanks. Kind of a pedantic exercise here, but I think I’ve got it. Do we also have costs ourselves for this work above and beyond this amount? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ve agreed as part of the concession agreement that the GNWT will be responsible to cut the tolls on the bridge. So there is a line item in our capital plan coming up, not ’09-10, but ’10-11, I believe, to implement some toll collection system. We had reserved some funding in the base agreement with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation, reserved some money that we would be spending right now on our ferry and our ice bridge to undertake the O and M related to that toll collection. So that’s money in our budget now essentially. It’s not identified as such, but it will be when the time comes forward.
Otherwise, we, of course, do monitor what’s happening with the bridge. So there is some staff time that would be dedicated to the bridge project. Thank you.
Yes, thank you. That’s it for now, thanks.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We are on page 11-41, which is an information…Mrs. Groenewegen.
Sorry, Mr. Chairman. Did anybody ask if there is any indication if the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation is coming back to this government for money any time soon?
Not yet. I will go to the Minister, Minister McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, we do have a concession agreement for the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation to build a bridge. They have been drawing down as the project proceeds.
Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I had heard that there were some contractors, rather small contractors, local contractors, that there maybe was an issue with the cash flow on the project and some people who weren’t getting paid. I was just wondering if any of that has been brought to Minister McLeod’s attention. He is the MLA for that area. I was wondering if there were any financial problems being encountered with the drawdown and disbursement of funds to subcontractors. Thank you.
Mr. Chairman, this is really not an issue for us to intervene on. It has been raised by some of the contractors that the payment to them was not as quick as they would like. There has also been concern that our approval process is very rigid in terms of having all the required approvals. This is a project that falls under the Canadian Bridge Code and everything has to be approved for quality assurance and stamped and signed off. It can be fairly lengthy in some cases. I am not aware of any subcontractors that have not been paid. It is an issue we have raised with the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and their subs. So as we did a review of the work done, the issues over this past year, and this is something we have asked them to look at improving. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, building a bridge, I imagine there are some pretty stringent issues of code and regulation and so on. I am certainly glad to hear the Minister say that our government wouldn’t consider circumventing any of those on any discretionary basis. So I suppose that is a good thing. I had just wondered, from the rumours I heard, if there was any issues of cost overruns or financial difficulties that might necessarily involve this government at some point in time. That was mainly what I was getting at. Thank you.
Thanks, Mrs. Groenewegen. I didn’t hear a question. We are on page 11-41, information time, work performed on behalf of others continued, $1.605 million.
Agreed.
Agreed? Next page…Actually, we are done the detail. We will go back to page 11-7, which is the summary page. Department of Transportation, department summary, operations expenditure summary, $97.060 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Is committee agreed that we’ve concluded the Department of Transportation?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. I think next on our list we were going to review…Sorry. Thank you, Mr. Minister. I will thank your witnesses as well and get the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort them out of the Chamber. Thank you.
Committee, our next item of business was Tabled Document 17-16(3), Supplementary Appropriation No. 3, 2008-09. Before we go into that, we’ll take a break.
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Okay, colleagues. I would like to call Committee of the Whole to order. We have before us for consideration Tabled Document 17-16(3), Supplementary Appropriation No. 3, 2008-2009. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
I will call on the Minister of Finance for opening remarks. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to present Supplementary Appropriation No. 3, 2008-2009. This document outlines additional appropriations of $17.833 million for operation expenditures and $6 million for capital investment expenditures in the 2008-2009 fiscal year.
Major items for operation expenditures include:
$5.1 million for costs associated with Northwest Territories residents receiving hospital and physician services outside of the Northwest Territories;
$2.8 million for the increased costs associated with the new contractor between the Government of the Northwest Territories and NWT physicians;
$1.6 million for increased costs associated with children in residential care outside the Northwest Territories;
$1.2 million for increased costs associated with the Territorial Power Subsidy Program.
The major item for capital investment expenditures is the $3 million to advance construction of an all-weather road from Tuktoyaktuk to gravel source 177, a Building Canada Plan project.
Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to review the details of the supplementary appropriation document. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Any general comments? Before I go to that, Minister Miltenberger, do you have witnesses you would like to call?
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. I will ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to escort the witnesses in and the Minister to introduce them. Thank you.
Minister Miltenberger, please introduce your witnesses.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Margaret Melhorn, deputy minister of Finance, and Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary to FMB.
Welcome to the House. General remarks. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, just to be consistent with statements or comments that I made during the review of supp one and the review of supp two in the previous budget session, we had talked about the previous supp amount of $25 million, $15 million of that was taken and rolled back into the departments and I believe, and at the time many of my colleagues believed as well, that that was to help the department’s plan so they wouldn’t have to come forward with as many supps, which left $10 million for supps to come forward. Between the first and second supp we had spent $6 million, leaving us with around $3 million. When I go through this, this supp, on the operations expenditure side is $17.88 million, which is significantly higher than the $10 million we started with and $3 million we had left. When I go through it I see a lot of that money is actually a nil effect to the GNWT because money is coming from other sources, but there is still about an $11 million hit against our $3 million that we had available, which actually puts us a long way over what we’d originally allocated for supps for the ‘08-09 fiscal year. So I’d like the Minister to explain that and talk a little bit more about that, given that we had hoped that we wouldn’t go so high over the supp.
I think the total now with this $11 million is going to be around $18 million, which is less than the $25 million we had in previous years, but it’s really $18 million plus the $15 million that we gave the departments already so that they didn’t have to come back. So we’re talking about $33 million that the supp would have been this year if we hadn’t changed the way we were doing things.
Mostly this statement is as a reminder that we had not wanted to go so high in supps and if we’re going to do this in the future, and I think we’ve already done it or it’s proposed for ‘09-10 to go to this similar sort of supp breakdown, we need to make sure that the departments are actually thinking about what their future expenditures are going to be. Some of these things in here -- and we’ll talk to them individually as we get to them -- I think could have been predicted. Not all of them I think are surprises. A supp is supposed to be for surprises, things that we can’t plan for. I think as we go through this one in particular, because it’s just so much money, I think we can identify ones that the department should have been able to plan for to some capacity even if it had been a projection. I’d like to not see this much in the way of supps coming in for the ‘09-10 fiscal year, and this is only number three, I know there’s going to be a number four. So we’re even going to be higher by the time we’re done.
So just some comments and I’d like some clarity on what our intentions are with the $10 million supp fund once the Minister does his response to our general comments. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Any further general comments? Thank you, committee. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, over the last five years this is the second lowest amount of supps if you look at the list that we gave you, including the $15 million that was already apportioned out. I think ‘04-05 was probably the year that was slightly lower. Every other year was significantly higher.
I take the Member’s comments. We’ve had this discussion about the process and it’s not surprises so much as we targeted areas where we know that there’s costs we may not control, and rather than build in estimates into the budget, which can be imprecise, the direction has been to departments to in those areas where, like some of the hospital health costs come back when you’ve spent the money, or as you’ll notice in some of the information that we’ve given you there is some significant cost increases from some of the out-of-territory suppliers.
We’re always interested, this is a new process where we took $15 million and carved it up among the departments. We would like to be as precise as possible, as well, and we’re very interested in working with committee to figure out what’s the best way to be as accurate as possible in this area. Keeping in mind all the years that I have been around, even before we came in government there always seemed to be these types of costs in government. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. We’ll move on to detail if committee is agreed.
Agreed.
We’ll start on page 5, Legislative Assembly, operations expenditures, Office of the Clerk, not previously authorized, $120,000. Is committee agreed?
Agreed.
Total department, not previously authorized, $120,000. Agreed?
Agreed.
Moving to page 6. Executive, operations expenditures, executive offices, not previously authorized, executive operations, $163,000.
Agreed.
Total executive offices, $163,000.
Agreed.
Moving to page 7, Executive, operations expenditures, Human Resources, not previously authorized, directorate, $526,000. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I know my colleague Mr. Abernethy was talking about departments and things that they could anticipate coming in the years I’ve been here, and years previous to that, my knowledge of collective bargaining with the UNW is something you can almost script. Every three years you’re going to have negotiations. You can go back and find out what you spent your money on three years ago and budget accordingly. I’m not sure why the $276,000 shows up via supplementary appropriation. I think it should be something the department budgets for every three years. They know it’s coming. It’s like clockwork; it’s going to happen and you should budget accordingly.
The $250,000 for a physicians’ contract, that’s something I believe we should know is coming as well, but that I can accept a little bit more readily than the contract negotiations with the UNW. I think we need to get a handle on what those costs are and budget for them and it shouldn’t come through a supp, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Not a question, but Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this is one of the cases where the department was instructed to come back once the funds had been expended and there was an exact amount. The costs aren’t the same from Collective Agreement time to Collective Agreement time, nor are the folks that we hire to be negotiators or the costs that they may charge. I’ll maybe ask Minister McLeod, responsible for HR, to speak a bit more about the process. Thank you.
