Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up on my Member’s statement. I have some questions for the Premier today about the lack of a policy for infrastructure contributions to a non-government organization. I mentioned in my statement, the Standing Committee on Social Programs has tried unsuccessfully, several times, to get the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to take on this task and to bring it forward and we have been rebuffed at least twice. Committee believes really strongly, as I do, that we need a policy.
I would like to first ask the Premier whether or not the Premier and/or the Executive Council have been made aware of this request and what action is he taking to address it. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are aware of this request in response to the opposition of previous funding, as the Member indicated in her Member’s statement. We do have a capital planning policy and we have previously responded to the committee that it’s very simple: we will not be entertaining those requests anymore. Any requests will go through the capital planning process. There will be no queue jumping, and any requests that come from the public, we will share with the committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I’m struggling to understand this process. I know we have a capital planning process and it works very well, but this is a situation that has not occurred before.
I’d like to know from the Premier what is in the policy that he referred to. He said there is a policy. I don’t think it has come to committee. I would like to know what’s in that policy that references infrastructure contributions to non-government organizations. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, what I said was we have a capital planning process. Any requests will go through that process.
In the past we have contributed approximately $2 million to Betty House. We provided $60,000 per year for Rockhill Apartments. We provided funds for repairs to NGO facilities through the CAEP budget. We recently reduced the rent charged to the Centre for Northern Families housing. We provided operating funding for North Slave Housing and we provided capital and operating funding for Avens. The policy, as I indicated, any requests for funding we will say no. We will also share it with the committee, and if committee feels we should deal with it, then we will put it through the capital planning process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thanks to the Premier, but I don’t feel that we’re going to have something which Members and/or the public is going to agree with. The Premier said that this is not going to happen again. Well, I have to say that one organization gets lucky and everybody else, too bad, it’s not ever going to happen again.
I need to know from the Premier… He mentioned a number of funds that we give to non-government organizations. What I heard was that these are organizations providing government services. The example that I referenced is an organization that is not providing any government services; it’s not operating on behalf of the GNWT. So when a non-government organization puts a request through to the Cabinet through committee or through a particular MLA, what is the government going to use to justify awarding that money? There’s no criteria, no policy. So I need to know from the Premier how a decision is going to be made to fund an infrastructure contribution, not operations, to a non-government organization. Thank you.
Thank you. With regard to infrastructure, we have a capital planning process. If there are any requests, they will go into the capital planning process. The capital planning process that we just finished is a process where we involve committees, and in developing our capital plan, projects are ranked in order of importance. There are five criteria: the protection of people, protection of assets, protection of environment, financial investments, program needs or requirements. So that’s the process and that way there’s no queue jumping. All projects are ranked on the basis of the five criteria. Then the Legislative Assembly votes on it or approves it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Premier for itemizing those priorities. I agree with those priorities, but I have to again ask, when an NGO comes forward and is looking for infrastructure, construction money, what are we going to do? The Premier mentions that there’s a process. I’d like to know if he would put that on paper and provide it to me and to committee. Thank you.
Thank you. So I guess my understanding is that the Member is not offended by the fact that we have provided such funding in the past, but would like to see a process where we can continue to do so. We’re quite prepared to discuss this with committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.
