Debates of October 17, 2013 (day 33)

I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee today? Ms. Bisaro.

Wendy Bisaro

Frame Lake

Thank you, Madam Chair. We would like to begin with general comments on the budget, Tabled Document 107-17(4).

Is committee agreed?

Agreed.

Alright. We will resume with that after a short break.

---SHORT RECESS

I’ll call Committee of the Whole back to order. Before the break the committee agreed that we are going to consider Tabled Document 107-17(4). I’d like to ask Minister Miltenberger if he would like to make his opening comments. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am here to present the 2014-15 Capital Estimates of the Government of the Northwest Territories.

The estimates outline appropriations for government and infrastructure contributions of $193 million and $29 million respectively, in the 2014-15 fiscal year.

The estimates, however, do not include appropriations for housing infrastructure proposed by the NWT Housing Corporation in 2014-15, totaling $31 million. The appropriation for these investments will be sought during committee’s review of the 2014-15 Main Estimates. The NWT Housing Corporation’s proposed 2014-15 Capital Plan, however, has been included in the estimates document as an information item for review and comment.

Including the proposed housing investment, the total planned infrastructure investment in 2014-15 will be $254 million.

As Members will recall, 2014-15 is the first year of a two-year increase to the capital plan of $50 million per year. Although this short-term increase will help address some critical infrastructure priorities, as Members are aware, the GNWT continues to have a significant infrastructure deficit. This deficit does not include deficits also accruing in our municipal and housing infrastructure stock.

The current fiscal strategy will continue to address this deficit after the two-year top-up sunsets by providing a $100 million allocation for capital planning in 2016-17 and escalating this by 5 percent thereafter. To ensure utilization of this allocation is maximized, funding for large projects such as the Stanton Hospital project and the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk highway will be provided for outside this base allocation.

The GNWT is facing the difficult challenge of maintaining existing assets, improving housing stock, and meeting legislative requirements with limited fiscal resources. Our ability to meet these needs is further constrained by a borrowing limit whose definition was broadened while the limit remains restrictive and does not reflect the debt carrying capacity of the territory.

Under the current limit there is limited opportunity for the GNWT to make investments to improve our territory’s essential infrastructure base to deliver programs and services, to respond to slowdowns in the NWT’s economy or to make investments in strategic infrastructure that will better position the territory and all of Canada to maximize economic opportunities of the North

Major highlights of these estimates include:

$90 million for highways and winter roads across the NWT. This includes funding for the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk highway, which will largely be funded by the federal government.

$62 million for health facility replacements, renovations and information system upgrades, including the initial funding required for the planning for the Stanton Territorial Hospital project.

$28 million to continue to contribute to community infrastructure needs

$12 million for small capital projects across all departments

$6 million for information technology projects

$4 million to continue the Capital Asset Retrofit Program for energy efficiency upgrades to existing GNWT buildings, including the installation of biomass heating systems, and

$3 million for improvements to NWT parks.

I am prepared to review the details of the 2014-15 Capital Estimates. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. I’d like to ask the Minister if he’d like to bring witnesses into the Chamber.

Yes, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Does committee agree?

Agreed.

Agreed, thank you. I’ll ask the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses to the table.

For the record, Minister Miltenberger, please introduce your witnesses.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have with me Mr. Mike Aumond, deputy minister of Finance; Mr. Russ Neudorf, deputy minister of Transportation; and Mr. Paul Guy, deputy minister of Public Works and Services. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. I’ll now open the floor for general comments on Tabled Document 107-17(4), Capital Estimates for the years 2014-2015. General comments. Ms. Bisaro.

Wendy Bisaro

Frame Lake

Thank you, Madam Chair. I have a few comments I want to make about the budget. I will, no doubt, have specific questions and comments when we get to various departments, but I have a number of sort of overview comments that I would like to make.

I think at the outset I want to appreciate that, as the Finance Minister and the department have told us a number of times, we have huge unmet infrastructure needs and the government is doing its best to try and meet those needs. I think my difficulties lie in where the money is allocated. I don’t necessarily agree with the budget that we have before us.

I think what struck me most, in considering the budget, is the size of the budget for the Department of Transportation compared to the rest of the departments and compared to the total size of the budget. Within the department itself it’s a $90 million or so budget and $70 million is going towards one project. We have a huge number of roads which need either rehabilitation, or we need new roads and we are spending, in my mind, an exorbitant amount of money on one project.

I do have some difficulties particularly in the Department of Education, Culture and Employment where we are spending what I consider to be a paltry amount of money, $3.7 million out of a total budget of $222 million, almost $223 million, and we’re spending just a little less than $4 million on our education infrastructure. From my perspective, particularly for my community, there are a number of schools in Yellowknife which should be receiving money for renovations or renewals or retrofits. Sissons School is one, which was certainly part of the capital plan a few years ago and now is no longer on the capital plan and isn’t for the foreseeable future. Mildred Hall School had renovations a number of years ago and has yet to have two or three parts of that project completed. That also is nowhere in this budget and is nowhere for the foreseeable future. William McDonald School is a school which is soon to be due for a retrofit, and it’s not anywhere that I can see as well.

So the amount of money that we’re putting into schools is definitely not enough and there are a number of schools in small communities which are well beyond their best before date and need to be renovated or expanded, and they are certainly not in this particular budget either. So those, in terms of education, I have some real major concerns with the amount of money we’re spending and with the projects which are not in that budget.

Aurora College is another one that is basically nowhere on the horizon. Members have spoken a lot about the need for a stand-alone campus for Aurora College in Yellowknife. There’s nothing in this budget to indicate that we’re getting anywhere close to seeing that project come to fruition.

In terms of Health and Social Services, I have one major concern, and that’s the retrofit, the renovation/expansion of Stanton Hospital. It is noted in the budget, but the amount of money that is in the budget is not an amount of money that is going to get us anywhere close to starting that kind of a renovation. I mean, we’ve heard numbers anywhere from $100 million to $400 million for this particular project, and it’s necessary. The hospital is full to capacity and beyond capacity. It needs to be expanded and it needs to be retrofitted so we can provide health services to our residents in up-to-date facilities as opposed to facilities that were built 25 and 30 years ago. Those health facilities weren’t built for the kind of health services that we provide right now in this day and age. So I have a really big concern that we have nothing concrete to tell us when the Stanton project is going to be started, when we’re going to start construction, how we’re going to finance it. I know it’s a big project, but I’m telling the Minister it’s a concern for me.

Also under Health, I think the money is there, I can’t quite remember, I think it’s hidden, but I want to see support for the proposal from Avens for long-term care for all of our NWT seniors. This may be a facility that is located in Yellowknife, but they service seniors throughout the territory. Their proposal is well thought out. It’s based on good research, which indicates we’re going to be well behind the eight ball in spaces for our seniors in a very short time and it’s a project that this government needs to get behind and I don’t see that in the Health budget.

Other than that, I appreciate the focus on deferred maintenance in the Capital Asset Retrofit Program. We’re still putting money into that and I think that is a good thing. Deferred maintenance is something on which we spend a great deal of money and I know it’s for older buildings and I would hope that for newer buildings, as they come into service, that we make sure we maintain them on a daily, monthly, yearly basis so that we don’t fall behind and have to do deferred maintenance in 20 years’ time. I’d appreciate a comment from the Minister on that. If our focus going forward is to keep our buildings up to date as much as possible, that’s what I think we should be doing at the same time that we’re trying to do all the maintenance that we’ve deferred for years and years on our older buildings.

The last comment I want to make has to do with Municipal and Community Affairs and the infrastructure contributions that go to our communities. It has remained the same for quite a few years. I don’t know how many, but certainly for as long as I’ve been here. More and more our communities are taking on more and more infrastructure. As they get the responsibilities devolved to them, they also take over buildings and buildings that are infrastructure. They, therefore, need more money to deal with those buildings, to do maintenance on those buildings, to keep them in good working order. So I want to encourage the government and MACA to make sure that… It’s not coming this year, I see that from the budget, but I would hope in the budget for ‘15-16 that we will see an increase to the infrastructure contributions for our communities. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Member has helped articulate the clear difference between the needs and the resources. Just looking at a rough number here as the Member was articulating the concerns for Yellowknife alone, which would be well over half a billion dollars and these are all projects that have merit, that need to get done.

The issue of the Transportation money and too much being spent on one project, that project is underway. It’s going to, in the long term, be of enormous benefit to the North, the most northerly portion of the Mackenzie Highway. We hope to achieve maximum benefit in terms of northern employment and business. We are working with that reality.

The amount of money that’s in Education, as the Member knows, there are some discussions underway that will help us to hopefully allow us to address some of them in Yellowknife and Hay River.

The Aurora College campus has been noted. I think it’s going to be looked at, at some point, in the not-too-distant future. It will probably be the object of a planning study. The retrofit to Stanton is definitely going to be over $300 million and it’s probably going to be working well along the way higher than that. So it will become the single biggest infrastructure project in the Northwest Territories when its time comes. The work on that, the schematic design and planning studies being completed… Not the planning study but the schematics and the P3 feasibility review is being looked at, and then starting next year we have $20 million allocated, and that number, in all probability, once we know the final number, is going to be increased. So there is going to be a major investment into Stanton here over the next number of years.

The Avens Centre, we’re aware of the pressures. We have some attention to be paid to places like the Sahtu where there is a long-term care facility on the books that is going to require the resources and attention on a go-forward basis to get up and running. We share the Member’s concern on the deferred maintenance, and the intent is to try to stay as far ahead of that or catch up as best we can to that particular issue and not put ourselves in a position again of short-term gain for long-term pain when it comes to looking at trying to cut costs and doing it in a way that’s going to end up costing us more down the road.

Finally, in the New Deal, the New Deal is set to increase starting in 2016-17, and as we’ve indicated in our comments, the intent is to tack on a 5 percent growth at that point on a go-forward basis.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Next I have Mr. Bromley.

Bob Bromley

Weledeh

Thank you, Madam Chair. I find a lot of my comments are the same as Ms. Bisaro’s. I don’t find the response from the Minister at all helpful. We are raising concerns here and he’s just stating what the budget is.

I think the message here is that we’re not happy with this budget. So going through very quickly here, this is a very unbalanced, disproportionate budget. It’s way over-weighted to highway, Department of Transportation highway projects, and primarily new highway projects.

I’d like to quote the Minister: “The GNWT is facing the difficult challenge of maintaining existing assets, improving housing stock, and meeting legislative requirements with limited fiscal resources.” We certainly are. We’re on the same boat here. And yet we’re stepping out and throwing tens, hundreds of millions of dollars at new projects while we let these existing assets dwindle at the cost of our residents. I hope that does get through to this Minister and his colleagues.

Three percent of this budget, less than that for Education; Education, one of our biggest priorities, probably our second largest department and a department with major failures right now. We are not educating our people as we want to be, and we are taking action to try and address those failures. But on the other hand, we are completely ignoring the needs of this department, and as we have been to a large degree in some regions for quite some time now.

Some examples: Highway No. 3 we know is our worst highway, our most challenging highway. Nothing this year, this proposed year. The Detah road has been hanging out there since a bulldozer went and threw materials over top of the trees and brush without even clearing it. We started this project several years ago; we’ve been hollering about it for decades. It’s a modest project – one or two million dollars a year for a few years or a couple years, to do this project – and it remains not in this year’s budget. Highway No. 3, again, finally getting a little attention, but way overdue. These are examples of simple maintenance and keeping up with the current infrastructure. Instead, we are ignoring these things and going on – and there are many others, of course – and throwing new dollars away on new projects that will hopefully bring maximum benefits, but there is no indication that they will bring enormous benefits, another word the Minister used. In fact, the studies indicate the opposite, that they will bring very modest benefits. They’re being done as economic development projects, I mean, sort of pie in the sky hopeful. We’ve got our fingers crossed while we’re throwing these hundreds of millions of dollars at these things.

There is no question that there could be other alternatives that we could throw money at for real, lasting, not temporary – you know, four-month winter jobs – but lasting long-term jobs.

The Inuvik-Tuk highway: We still don’t know how much this project is going to cost us. We don’t have an estimate. We had an 85 percent estimate, so called, with none of the bridges priced out, with the most problematic section of the road over a high ice content area. We know that the challenges remain, and continue, to find good quality gravel. And we still don’t know what the estimated cost is for this project, or the liabilities. We know that this project would benefit from slowing down to get the economic development and the longer term employment we could use since we are throwing so much money and we’ve committed so much money at this project. We’re not doing that. We’re trying to finish it up as fast as we can, ignoring all these other needs.

Ms. Bisaro mentioned quite a number of education projects that are obviously overdue, and yes, they do total up to quite a bit, and several of them have been on the books, or not on the books but called for, for many years in different parts of the Northwest Territories.

The health infrastructure side, I agree, is also a concern. Here we have a shameful lack of focus and progress on the Stanton Territorial Hospital, expenditure this year of $1 million. That’s something like 0.2 percent of this infrastructure project; 0.2 percent. That’s one-fifth of 1 percent. Now we’re proposing 1.7 percent. At that rate it will be 40 years, 50 years – longer than 50 years – 55 years before we finish the project, and the building will be falling apart. The next year, the Minister commented just now, $20 million, that’s 5 percent. It will take 20 years at that rate. The life of the building with this renovation is expected to be about 25 years.

We are doing some other health facilities throughout the Northwest Territories, which I’m happy to see happening. Ms. Bisaro, I believe, also mentioned the seniors’ care requirements. That’s an area that we need throughout the NWT. The numbers I’ve seen, predictions are tripling of our seniors that will need some level of care within the next 15 years. That’s incredible. I mean, that means doubling of something less than that, which means, obviously, we’ve got to be focusing in here.

Again, yes, there are needs, and yes, we continue to throw money at new projects that we, as far as I can see, can’t afford at the rate we’re doing. I’ll leave it at that and we can get into specifics as we go here, but again, not an impressive budget for me. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This budget is entirely in keeping with the plan we laid out at the start of the 17th Assembly, and I think we collectively should recognize how much work we’ve done to get to the point where we could actually put in an extra $50 million a year over the next two years, the last two years of this government, to do a number of additional projects and deal with opportunities that occur like the Tuk-Inuvik highway where there is $200 million, basically for us 30 cent dollars, and the opportunity to put in a piece of much needed infrastructure in the part of the territory that has no roads. I don’t know the cumulative amount of money we spent on Highway No. 3, but I can well remember sitting in this Assembly where the majority of the money in the capital plan went to, in fact, paving Highway No. 3 and doing all the work. Back then it was well over $100 million worth of major investments that we made as a government for quite some time and where there were a lot of other unmet needs.

Over time we have to make decisions. We have to pay attention to the whole territory. When you look at education, once again over time we had extensive discussion in this Assembly about the amount of money we are spending on schools in Inuvik, for example. We have built schools in Tulita, Fort Good Hope, Ndilo and Inuvik in the last few years. This particular budget, at this point in time, doesn’t have significant amounts of money for education, but if you take a long-term look at our investments, we have been paying, I think, very good attention to all those critical areas.

The issue of slowing down the Tuk-Inuvik highway will just drive up the cost of the project as we stretch it out over time, but I think it makes eminent good sense for us to try and maximize the economic benefit of $300 million by maximizing northern investment, northern employment, northern business involvement, and we are doing that.

It’s unfortunate that the Member has such low regard for this budget. I, on the other hand, as the Minister bringing it forward, think we have, once again, done a good job trying to incorporate all the concerns we have heard around the country and the balance of paying attention to the whole North and looking at trying to make a relatively modest amount of money go a very long way. We look forward to the discussion in the coming days with the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. General comments. Mr. Nadli.

Michael Nadli

Deh Cho

Thank you, Madam Chair. Overall, I think I understand how this budget came to be, and as we are king of being reminded by the Minister, when we started the 17th Assembly, we had an overview of the fiscal framework and how it’s going to work over the next four years. So I have an understanding in terms of how things are being laid out as we invest in the infrastructure. Perhaps sometimes this is aging while at the same time there are real needs in terms of communities. It’s vitally important and paramount that they receive the services that all Canadians enjoy across Canada.

I would like to say the budget overall this time around looks good, but of course, there are shortfalls. We are not going to please everybody. At the same time, there are some concerns that I have to obviously express on behalf of the constituents that I represent. Obviously, the first and foremost is the big gap in terms of ensuring that the basic, intrinsic and very vital infrastructure such as water treatment plants be considered. It is nowhere near in terms of studies in terms of whether it’s going to happen or not. There have been some discussions that, yes, some communities do have the capacity. They have been devolved some responsibility of fiscal resources and they have to do their homework, most likely do a business case analysis in terms of how it is they can make and maintain operation and maintenance. That is the challenge that our communities face.

At the same time, I am hoping in the future, perhaps next year, we will have some progress on the front. There are still some communities, especially on the highway system where we promote tourism and business development, people that would like to invest in those communities and want to ensure that there are proper services to the public and to communities as well.

There are some blank spots in the budget, I think. For one, especially for the communities that I represent. I think, and looking at the big picture, it obviously has some strengths but the finer details of how it is that the small things don’t mean much for an overall view of the NWT budget, but is significantly needed for communities such as Fort Providence where there has been a growing interest in the area from the bridge to the old winter crossing. There are two peninsulas there that are heavily used in the summertime by tourists. They are very attracted to that area because in the summertime when they fish, there’s a wind and it keeps the bugs away. The point is that that highway should not be abandoned. I think the community has come up with a strong pull to ensure that the government maintains its obligations, especially for public safety purposes.

Education, I agree with my colleagues. We have some startling figures that point to our failures in the small communities. Sure, perhaps throwing money at problems may not solve it, but there is such a thing, a belief, that if you do something very nice, especially for kids, they will be attracted to going to school if you are a kid. If they relate to a nice, shiny building in our community that is very bright, teachers that recognize their gift and being able to create an environment, I think is an investment. So I’m disappointed in the shortfall in this regard.

There are still some very startling needs, especially in housing. Right now we have made some strong efforts in trying to look at a system that is at least responsive to the public needs, especially people that live in communities in terms of falling through the system. Sometimes there are people who are unable to meet criteria and prerequisites and thresholds of income to be able to move out of public housing rent and try to get their own houses, especially young families. There is still a challenge out there. This effort falls short in terms of looking at some collaboration with agencies and stakeholders, and ensuring we come up with some very novel ideas that meet those needs of community residents that might want to, in the end, own their own houses.

There are still needs in terms of going back to the people’s needs. We still have issues of homelessness and poverty that I think we still need to work on. I am encouraged by my colleagues that that has to go forward. We need to have some substantive efforts to ensure that we show the public that yes, indeed, we’re a government is responsive, and indeed some efforts and initiatives will result for work ahead of us.

I was really encouraged over the course of the summer of seeing the Anne Buggins Wellness Centre open on the Hay River Reserve. I know the Department of Health and Social Services had a pivotal role in ensuring that that came to a realization. I also understand and appreciate some of the complexities in terms of tenureship of lands, lands that are designated for federal Crown land within a reserve, and of course a reserve within the NWT. Fundamentally I think it is a challenge working with other jurisdictions, especially with the reserve, but I am encouraged with the idea that the health and wellness centre has opened up on the reserve. It has been a model perhaps that has been achieved because of inter-jurisdictional cooperation and understanding, and some trails that has been blazed. I commend the people who were involved with that project. I am encouraged to the point that I’m hoping that those advances that were made on the reserve will not stop. There are some comparative disparities in terms of the reserve and the town of Hay River. When people look across the river, they would like to receive the same services as other people enjoy right across Canada. I’m hoping that some arrangements will be struck at some point in terms of the Katlodeeche First Nations. They have an aspiration to create a land claim or treaty land entitlement structures. I know there are matters of jurisdiction that need to be sorted out. I am encouraged that government will make advances in the future.

Really, for the most part, infrastructure projects in communities are appreciated because it only does not create jobs for people, it creates jobs for people but at the same time it invigorates the business community. At this point in Fort Providence, the health centre is being constructed. It’s a project that will likely last for two years. It will create employment and enhance the business community in Fort Providence.

So those were just a few comments that I wanted to make. I appreciate the time that has been recorded for this subject. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate the Member’s comments. The issue of the water treatment plants in Kakisa and Enterprise, I know the Member has initiated discussions with Minister McLeod. That issue will be given due consideration.

The issue of Providence and the old site where the road used to be and the ferry, Transportation is in the process of responding to the letter from the Member who has raised that concern.

In terms of small communities and some of the school needs, we do have money in the budget for planning studies for Colville and Trout Lake. So there is going to be some progress on those two key issues.

The housing shortage is a critical one that we’ve talked about collectively as a Legislative Assembly. In addition to the money identified in this budget for housing as an information item at this point, it’s our intention to come forward through the O and M side with another plan to do some dramatic investments in housing, especially in small communities to try to deal with the pressures especially for unfilled positions as it relates to government jobs, teachers, nurses and such.

All these processes and all these projects take time. The Anne Buggins Wellness Centre was started, if memory serves, way back in the 15th Assembly. I was Minister of Health at the time and Minister McLeod was Minister of MACA, and we thought it would be a six-month process to sort everything out and it took considerably longer and finished off by those that came afterwards, but it’s a good project to see done.

The level of service on the reserve tied to their TLE negotiations, it would be nice to have that resolved, as well, and I’m sure they’ve done that, but in my constituency we have two treaty land entitlement agreements. So people can see how those work, the benefits as well as maybe some of the drawbacks. I thank the Member for his comments. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Yakeleya.

Norman Yakeleya

Sahtu

Thank you, Madam Chair. The process that the government takes for infrastructure and allocation of funding in the Northwest Territories happens on a government-wide approach. The government goes through this every year and they have community consultations that they go into the communities to explain the process and how they determine allocations. The government then comes back with a base, and other departments assess their own needs for infrastructure, and the government then has a process where the departments compete for the funding. If there are 10 dollars in the pot, the departments compete for those 10 dollars. Plus they also take the concerns of the MLAs here. Every community also may have an influence in the decision-making. Funding is then divvied up and comes to the MLAs and sometimes it doesn’t match the needs of the MLAs on this side. We are happy when we hit the bull’s eye and we say, yes, this project is coming to our community. It’s long overdue.

We also recognize that we have a huge, I don’t know if you’d call it a liability, but we have a huge bill on maintaining our assets. It’s incredible. With what they are doing to catch-up, it’s going to be a while yet, but they’re doing the most critical part. The process that we follow sets out the criteria. The criteria are to look at what funding and infrastructure receives the highest priority. That funding is the protection of people. So I’m going to be questioning the Ministers and departments on their rationale on their funding. Why did this project get approved and this one didn’t? Why isn’t this project receiving some attention, especially in my region where there seems to be a huge increase in the oil and gas activity, and the protection of people on our winter roads, in our communities and some of the infrastructure that needs to happen in regard to the amount of alcohol sales that are being talked about. There was a huge increase we saw from the Northwest Territories Liquor Commission and the increase of purchasing hard liquor in my region seems to be lifting the liquor restriction at the Norman Wells liquor store.

So the main focus for me would be the protection of people, and the government, I think sometimes, in all its goodness, looks at the assets in the communities. I appreciate the continuous message that we need a long-term care facility in the Sahtu. We also need a new wellness centre and I appreciate the government moving on that front. It is slow, but it’s moving. We’ve got different briefing notes of when it’s going to start and when it’s going to conclude. It’s different, but I’m happy. I should knock on wood, I guess, that it’s going to happen this winter. So that I appreciate. That is over 10 years and for infrastructure on the activity in the Sahtu that needs to be really considered because of the increase of activity.

Last year the Minister of Transportation and I drove from Fort Good Hope to Fort Simpson – it’s 700 and some-odd kilometres – and we saw the condition of the winter roads. My information tells me that there were about 2,200 or more big trucks on that winter road for that short period of time. That isn’t going to stop. If Conoco or Shell or MGM is in that area and they want to further examine the potential for the Canol shale play, there’s going to be more traffic on that winter road this year and the following years if they step it up to a production level. So I’m looking forward to some support on this front.

The community of Deline has always pushed for hydro, and there are opportunities to look at how we can best make use of this resource and look at other communities such as possibly helping Norman Wells with their natural gas situation. My people are getting quite concerned about the conversion and the cost of these conversions. Is there any type of support in infrastructure to help the community of Norman Wells with their conversion?

I still am quite alarmed by the high percentage of core needs for housing in Colville Lake and the issue of TB. Why is TB still an issue in Colville Lake? It seems to be a resurgent theme every so often. Is it because of overcrowding? The high percentage of six or more people in one house is high in the Sahtu. I do appreciate the Minister of Housing coming forward later, on how we’re going to address this issue. I’m looking forward to seeing if that percentage can be dropped. In 2009 it was 70 percent of core need in Colville Lake, and core need is suitability, affordability and the adequacy of a house. That needs to be addressed; otherwise we’ll continue to see cases of TB in the small communities.

I look forward to looking at the infrastructure budget around the recreation areas. Fort Good Hope has asked to look at the existing recreation facility. It’s actually in pretty bad shape. Fort Good Hope has a high crime rate in regard to alcohol-related issues. One of the prevention mechanism factors is to have young people be active and be healthy, and that recreation facility is not being used to its potential. It’s actually falling apart. I was hoping that there would be some movement in this budget, hoping I could speak to it the budget on the issue of getting Fort Good Hope a more suitable recreation centre that people can be proud of and people can use, and maybe that will help us deter the use of alcohol and drugs amongst the young people. We have a high number of young people in the Sahtu region and that’s going to be our target issue for the next couple of years.

I do want to thank the Minister and his staff and the Members for bringing forward this budget so we can have a good discussion in the next couple of weeks.

Bob Bromley

Weledeh

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Miltenberger, any comments?