Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We, being the Members of this House and the public, were led to believe the work on the Highway No. 4 bypass, which went through some potential high-risk arsenic hotspots, was vetted by our Department of Transportation, ENR and the Giant Mine Remediation Team. We were assured that there was an eye on safety and liability aspects of potential risk to workers and contractors. My question today is for the Minister of Transportation.
Yesterday I tabled a 2008 Queen’s University study, where the author clearly recommended more sampling be done further away from the roaster, due to the persistent arsenic trioxide in the soil environment at Giant.
Can the Minister indicate to the House, before yesterday, was this the first time he or his department has seen such report? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can’t speak for whether the senior management at DOT has seen that report or not. I know that it wasn’t directly related to the bypass road, and I have not seen the report. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the second report I tabled was an April 16, 2014, Giant Mine Working Group Public Report. On page 3, “Erika Nyyssonen (GNWT-ENR) noted that DOT, at the time, had been made aware of the Queens Soils results, and their vicinity to the highway realignment activities.”
Clearly, the department was aware of the province of arsenic in the area. So, can the Minister indicate to the House, why there was no baseline soil sampling for the potential of arsenic done by DOT before the construction of the Highway No. 4 bypass? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I don’t know that there were no baseline studies done on the Highway No. 4. I’d have to get to the department to determine whether or not there was a baseline study done. I’m assuming that there was, and if there was some danger there to building the bypass road there, it would not have been built. Thank you.
I can answer that question for the Minister here because it was answered in that report on page 3. I quote, “Todd Slack (YKDFN) asked if there had been any sampling done before the new highway was constructed. Erika Nyyssonen (GNWT-ENR) said that DOT did not do any baseline sampling before the road went in.” So, Mr. Speaker, this is clear evidence that the DOT failed to provide the necessary liability aspects for potential risk to workers and contractors.
Does the Minister know if there has been any baseline sampling done that he is aware of or the department has done during the construction life of the Highway No. 4 bypass? Thank you.
I’m not aware of any studies done.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Here is the bill of goods. According to public documents, DOT clearly knew the potential for arsenic-rich hotspots with the Queen’s report for the Highway No. 4 bypass and yet they did not do any baseline sampling. Why? Who knows?
Can the Minister clearly articulate what real precautions took place with this road construction and what is this government’s liability to the arsenic exposure to these contractors? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
As that road is still under construction, I will speak to the department and the work that they’ve done. They have done some work with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources when that road was being planned. I’m assuming the department, if advised by the Department of Environment and Natural Resources, another department of the government, that it would be dangerous to build a road there, that the road would not have been built there, but I will check with the department and get back to the Member. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to follow some of my colleagues today in talking about the cost of living. I’d like to start by asking the Premier about this new Energy Charrette that is being held. I’m not saying it’s a bad idea, but we had the first one that seemed to generate a fair amount of enthusiasm.
I would like to ask the Premier if he could articulate for us what we learned from the first Energy Charrette which actually resulted in some kind of a change in the direction that we were going or the way we do things that might have actually impacted the cost of living in the North because, in fact, energy is a huge part of that cost of living. Thank you.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We learned a lot from the first Energy Charrette. We had a very good discussion and the outcomes of that was the Energy Action Plan, where this government invested more resources into reducing our reliance on fossil fuels. We came up with a 20-year vision for power production and basically it looked at joining up the two hydro zones by building transmission lines and also looking to have inter-ties with the South so we could access cheaper power, and as demand grows, we can expand our hydro facilities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
So it sounds like the first Energy Charrette, then, did produce some very positive results and some recommendations and some plans.
I would like to ask the Premier if we as a government are in a position financially to act on some of those long-range plans.
Has there already been action taken or is there some action to come that we can afford to undertake in the government? Thank you.
It was our government’s intention to look at finishing the costing of these transmission lines, and also, at the same time, we had approached the federal government to increase our borrowing limit by $1 billion.
Our costing has determined that the cost of building a transmission line to join the Taltson and Snare Hydro systems are prohibitive and it’s in the neighbourhood of almost 100 percent more than we had originally forecasted. In our view, those costs are too prohibitive to allow us to go ahead.
I think we feel with a second Energy Charrette we have to take a different approach whereby we make the consumers start to utilize more alternative and renewable forms of energy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to ask the Premier if the recent statistics on the low water and the impact that had on our hydro production has caused any shift in the plan that was developed as a result of the Energy Charrette. Obviously, we don’t know how long this is going to continue to be a problem, but it might have resulted in some kind of correction to our plans going forward given the outcome of this past year’s water levels and hydro interruptions. Thank you.
Certainly the low water and prohibitive cost estimates for building transmission lines, we don’t know if this low water will continue. This is a first time ever, the lowest in 65 years. Generally, the hydro reservoirs are filled with water every year with the runoff from the spring, or the freshet as they call it. The annual rainfall this year for the three months of May, June, July, I think we had a thimbleful of rain. So I don’t know if this will be continuing on an ongoing basis, but certainly it made us recognize that we had to find a better way to reduce our reliance on hydro facilities in case it’s a permanent situation where going forward where the reservoirs won’t be refilled and we will have to look at alternatives where the consumers will have to become more independent and we will have to find a way to reduce our reliance on some of these facilities by having the Power Corporation buy excess power by individuals who generate their own power. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It sounds, from what the Premier is saying, that the focus of the second Energy Charrette is going to be away from the infrastructure more to breaking it down to the consumer.
Is the make-up or the composition of the people who will be participating in the second Energy Charrette going to reflect that shift in focus? Thank you.
That is our intention, and we hope that through the people who we invite and all the participants that will in fact be the case. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Who likes tax audits? I clearly don’t and I can speak for many, as well; however, the need to validate compliance with tax laws is paramount, and unfortunately, a tax audit is such a measure of testing this effectiveness. I will be asking the Minister of Finance today questions pertaining to our two self-reporting tax categories of tobacco and fuel.
Tax assessments for tax law noncompliance are a critical measure for government performance and transparency.
Can the Minister of Finance share with the House how many tax audits were performed for both self-reporting tobacco and fuel tax for the 2013-2014 fiscal year? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Minister of Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There were two tobacco tax audits in 2013-14, one in Edmonton and one in Hay River. There were 18 petroleum products tax audits in 2013-14 and all 18 were in Yellowknife. Thank you.
From the findings we received today here from the Minister for the ’13-14 fiscal year, can the Minister indicate what was the breakdown of the amount of the additional assessment of dollars recovered for both tobacco and fuel tax?
The additional net adjustments for tobacco audits was $378,000, and the additional net adjustments for petroleum products was $2.360 million.
What we’re hearing from the Minister today, if we compare this to last year’s public accounts, we’ve increased somewhat a number of our tax assessments from the previous year but this is translated, I believe, to a substantially larger assessment of dollars being recovered. Just my quick math here, showing about $2.7 million recovered, which is incredible.
Given these startling numbers, what measures are the Minister or the department prepared to change on how we deal with the self-reporting tax for both tobacco and fuel?
Effective April 2014 there were two additional tax audit positions put into play. It was approved during the business planning process. The regional structure was put in place. One of the new auditors was in Hay River and the other one in Inuvik to complement the manager of tax audit. We talked tax audit positions in Yellowknife. The 2014-15 audit work plan was created based on general risk assessment of the tobacco, petroleum products and payroll tax areas. Training of the new auditors, implementation of the regional structure is a focus for 2014-15, and the work plan the following planned audits for 2014-15. There were, for tobacco, four wholesaler audits, there were eight major wholesale audits, 11 in total, two in Yellowknife, one in Hay River, one in Inuvik, 17 retail audits within seven communities, 115 retailers in the NWT, six in Yellowknife, five in Hay River, six in Inuvik. The current status is eight out of the 17 retail audits have been completed to date, six in Yellowknife, one in Inuvik and one in Hay River. There have been no wholesaler audits completed to date. There have been no issues noted on the audits based on the audits to date.
Petroleum audits, five audits of major collectors, 45 and 50 active collectors, 12 of which have been major collectors, two in Yellowknife, two in Hay River and one in Inuvik. For audits of non-major collectors, one in Yellowknife, two in Inuvik and one in Hay River. Current status is there is one audit of a major collector in progress in Yellowknife. Four other audits are also in progress, one in Yellowknife, two in Inuvik and one in Hay River.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Minister’s fine forensic audit on that audit.
Given the increased interest of these two self-reporting categories, can the Minister indicate to the House why is the information of tax assessment and additional dollar recovery not readily available to the public? Of course, I understand confidentiality of locations of wholesalers and retailers are critical, however, the aggregate of such information is not. So why is it that this department is not sharing audit information publicly?
We are as transparent as possible. We, of course, are interested in being more transparent if that’s possible. We would be more than happy to have discussions with the Member and with committee about what improvements could be made.
I would also just like to touch on some additional information that I didn’t touch on before. There were also payroll audits done, payroll tax audit. Two major payroll tax collectors, and there were two done in Hay River, 23 additional payroll audits are planned, five in Yellowknife, 12 in Hay River, six in Inuvik. The current status is one of the major collectors audits is in progress and that one is in Hay River.
I appreciate the interest of the Member and we would be, of course, more than willing to have any type of discussion the committee sees as important in improving the transparency of the operation and the accountability that is currently in place.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Finance. In April 2014 the Fraser Institute published “Canadian Government Debt 2014 – A Guide to the Indebtedness of Canada and the Provinces.” Please provide the following data, according to the definitions of the Fraser Institute Report, for the 2013-2014 fiscal year:
NWT government liabilities for
total direct debt;
total debt guarantees;
total contingent liabilities and contractual commitments;
total program obligations; and
total government liabilities
consolidated government liabilities, per capita and as a percentage of GDP for
total direct debt
total debt guarantees
total contingent liabilities and contractual commitments;
total program obligations; and
total government liabilities
growth in consolidated government liabilities per capita, per taxpayer, and as a percentage of GDP for
total direct debt
total debt guarantees
total contingent liabilities and contractual commitments;
total program obligations; and
total government liabilities
total consolidated government liabilities per capita, per taxpayer, and as a percentage of GDP
total government interest charges and interest charges as a percentage of revenue.
Good afternoon, committee. I would like to call Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of committee? Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We would like to consider Tabled Document 115-17(5), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2015-2016.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We will commence after a short break.
---SHORT RECESS
I’ll call Committee of the Whole to order. We agreed to consider Tabled Document 115-17(5). I would like to ask the Minister responsible, Minister Miltenberger, to make his opening comments.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am here to present for the committee’s consideration the 2015-16 Capital Estimates of the Government of the Northwest Territories.
The estimates represent $249 million in appropriations for government and $28 million for community infrastructure investments in the 2015-16 fiscal year.
These estimates do not include appropriations for housing infrastructure proposed by the NWT Housing Corporation in 2015-16, totaling $36 million. The appropriation for these investments will be sought during the committee’s review of the 2015-16 Main Estimates. The NWT Housing Corporation’s proposed 2015-16 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 2015-16 will be $314 million.
These estimates represent the second 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, the GNWT will continue to have a significant infrastructure deficit going forward.
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 government. The GNWT will continue 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:
$108 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;
$84 million for health facility replacements, renovations and information system upgrades, including funding required for the renovation of the Stanton Territorial Hospital project;
$28 million to continue to contribute to community infrastructure needs;
$15 million for small capital projects across all departments;
$7 million to begin replacing the current air tanker fleet that support forest fire operations;
$6 million for information technology projects;
$3 million to continue the Capital Asset Retrofit Program for energy efficiency upgrades to existing GNWT buildings, including the installation of biomass heating systems; and
$2.5 million for improvements to NWT parks.
In addition to the significant capital investment for 2015-16 I just articulated, the government also expects to successfully conclude an agreement with Canada that will implement the new Building Canada agreement that will see $258 million over 10 years invested in infrastructure for the GNWT and municipal governments. The government intends to bring forth a supplementary appropriation in the February-March 2015 session to include the first bundle of new Building Canada Plan projects in the 2015-16 Infrastructure Acquisition Plan.
I’m prepared to review the details of the 2015-16 Capital Estimates. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you very much, Mr. Minister. Would the Minister like to bring witnesses to the House?
Mr. Chair, I understand that we just intend to do general comments today, so I had not arranged to have any witnesses to be brought in. Thank you.
Alright. Does committee agree to continue with general comments on TD 115-17(5)?
Agreed.
