Thank you, Mr. Chair. So, generally speaking, it’s a system that we use to forecast our cash requirements and short-term borrowing and the cost of borrowing, how we might mitigate that, but essentially we have a Treasury Management Information System now that’s on its second version. It’s based on technology that’s decades old and it’s failed twice in the last 24 months. With devolution, now we have increased amount of funds coming through our bank accounts, and now we’re trying to track resource revenues as well going through our bank account. We use this all to make sure that we’re trying to maintain a good management and monitoring of our fiscal strategy, to ensure we’re trying to meet our objectives. So, what we have now also is a system that although it is information that is really based on pushing paper and having manual inputs into the system, what we want to do is we want to automate that.
So, what we want to do is improve the functionality of our cash forecasting capabilities along with enhancing our GNWT’s investment and debt tracking capabilities between our trading partner, which is basically the bank and investment firms that we do our investing. It provides direct access to receipt and disbursement data, which will enhance both monitoring actual data and forecasting, which will be improved by the accurate complete of data, and really it’s automated management of the investment pools as opposed to the management or the manual system that we’re doing now. So, really, more accurate tracking of our borrowing requirements, which is now outside of the current system we have, and we had hoped to put this in initially when we did SAM, but the budget we had wouldn’t allow for that.
Really what we’re trying to do is take a decades’ old system and bring it into the 21st Century and allow us to provide better management and reporting not only for the system but for the Assembly itself. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thanks for that response. I think it will be very interesting to have a discussion at some point on what our portfolio of investments is. This may not be the right forum for it, but it’s something I don’t recall. Perhaps our committee on Gov Ops has had that, but that might be an interesting discussion.
Just on the other project, I see it’s a completion of the implementation of the PeopleSoft financial…(inaudible)…sourcing and so on. Are we on budget with that? I don’t see a prior year expenditure on this, although I know we seem to invest untold millions into this software generally. Where are we at in achieving our targets with what was originally predicted for costs here with this SAM system and with this second project specifically? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to the sourcing contract supplier contract management, this again, it’s a separate module in SAM, and it was something we had intended to do when we originally implemented the system, but the budget we had wouldn’t allow for it. Really what this will do, it will help address some of the concerns of the Auditor General when they did their audit for procurement a few years back, while having a system that will provide consistent and complete information with respect to contracting and sourcing as well as maintaining clearly tracked deliverables and payment schedules. It will help ensure our employees who are procurement employees who work in procurement and shared services have the right tools to do their job. In addition, it will help provide for an enhanced vendor experience with the GNWT by putting our procurement online and allowing businesses who under procurement with the GNWT to do that business online and track where their contracts are going.
So we’re looking for $50,000 in ’15-16, and we will also be looking to supplementary appropriation of moving some O and M money out of the Department of Finance’s budget and converting it to capital to complete this project in this fiscal year. Thank you.
Thank you for that information. I heard that there will be the $50,000 cost and I believe the deputy minister said some additional going to this project from operations. Perhaps I should know that amount. Thank you.
Yes, $175,000.
So now this project is up to $225,000, putting those two figures together, and $175,000 being moved over from operations in ’15-16. I don’t know what our operations budget is, but is that the normal course for capital purchases? I know it is possible to transfer between, but I thought it was usually sort of a supplementary thing as opposed to 80 percent of the cost.
I thank the Member for the question. The Member is correct in that it is a supplementary thing and that’s the route that we will be pursuing here. Given that our allocation for IT is about $6.5 million and competition for the project, we actually had an opportunity this year in Finance to allocate some money to help accelerate the project. So we chose to do that route rather than try to delay the project further.
I thought I heard we’ve got a $6 million capital budget for Finance here. Am I missing something? I think we’re dealing with the Department of Finance capital budget here. This seems to be a much more significant portion than I had originally thought. I just wanted to make sure I had the context right. Thank you.
We have a corporate allocation across the entire GNWT of about $6.5 million for IT projects of which all departments compete for and get allocated money from. Our allocation in ‘15-16 for those projects are $210,000, and rather than delay the allocation or the rollout of this project, what we are hoping to do is to allocate $175,000 in ‘15-16 for the strategic sourcing supplier contract management portion of that and top that up in ‘15-16 with $50,000. Thank you.
I think I will leave it at that. I think again that is something that committee might want to talk about, is what the rules are here, if there are any, in terms of transfer of operational funds. This is a stand-alone cost, albeit it is software and we buy lots of software, but it is a stand-alone cost within Finance and that’s quite a significant contribution from operations, presumably in the Department of Finance, to this project. So I think, again, it could stand a little discussion in committee so we’re doing this with full cognizance. That’s all I have. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. I’ll allow the Minister for final comment.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Of course, if there is an interest by committee to have a chat or discussion or meeting with Finance or a briefing on rules for transfer between O and M and capital, while it is done and there are rules and ways to do it, we would be happy to have that discussion. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Committee, we are on page 28 on Finance, office of the comptroller general, infrastructure investments, $210,000. Committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Committee, I will ask you to return to page 27. Finance, total infrastructure investments, $210,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Does committee agree we have concluded consideration of the Department of Finance?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. I would like to thank Deputy Minister Aumond and Minister Miltenberger this afternoon. If I can get the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort our witness out of the Chamber.
Committee, I will get you to turn your attention to the Human Resources section in your capital estimates, page 37. With that, we will turn to the Minister responsible for that department to see if he has any witnesses that he would like to bring to the House. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do.
Thank you. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Sergeant-at-Arms, if could you please escort the witnesses at this time. Thank you.
Mr. Beaulieu, if you would care to introduce your witnesses to the House.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With me today is Shirley Desjardins, deputy minister of Human Resources, and Michelle Beard, director of corporate affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Ms. Desjardins, Ms. Beard, welcome to the Chamber.
Committee, we agreed earlier for convention protocol that we will have no opening comments and will go directly to general comments. With that, general comments. Does committee agree to go into detail?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Committee, turn to page 37 of your capital estimates book. We will defer this activity at this moment, and I will turn your attention to page 38, Human Resources, directorate, infrastructure investments, $440,000. Any questions? Seeing none, I will ask the committee to return to page 37, total infrastructure investments, Human Resources, total infrastructure investments, $440,000. Committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Does committee agree we have concluded consideration for the Department of Human Resources?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. I’d like to thank Minister Beaulieu, Ms. Desjardins and Ms. Beard for joining us today. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could escort the witnesses out of the Chamber. Thank you.
Committee, moving along, I would like to turn your attention to Education, Culture and Employment. This is on page 11 of the capital estimates. With that, we will turn over to the Minister responsible to see if he has any witnesses to bring into the House. Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. Yes.
Thank you. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Sergeant-at-Arms, could you please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.
Thank you, Minister Lafferty. Would you like to introduce your witnesses to the House please.
Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Dana Heide, associate deputy minister with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment; and Tammy Allison, manager, capital planning, Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Heide, Ms. Allison, welcome to the Chamber.
Committee, as indicated earlier, we will forego opening comments. We will go directly to general comments. General comments, Education, Culture and Employment. Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome, Minister, to the table. I want to look at the progression of having the required infrastructure in our small communities and I am going to quickly allude to the Sahtu region, to the existing learning centres from Aurora College in our small communities. I have made note of it, Mr. Chairman, that I was in Deline last week at the economic leadership strategy meeting for the Sahtu region. In the economic leadership strategy meeting they talked about the appreciation of the department and looking at the needs assessment and no one was in the Sahtu region today. We have our appreciation that we can now say these are the needs assessments in the Sahtu. Can we now start matching those needs assessments to the existing facilities that we have or do we need to create additional infrastructure?
I was approached by one of the board members from the land corporation and the board member talked about the Aurora College Learning Centre in Tulita, where possibly a cooking program, training program, could be there. Right now we just don’t have that infrastructure. You may have it in Norman Wells, maybe, with the camps and cooks and that, you may have it in Deline with the Grey Goose having the facility there, so we wanted to look at that and ask the department, given that we have a certain amount of days left in this government here and how fast government works to get things done in our communities, is that a possibility of starting a second phase, I guess, to the needs assessment, to look at matching the infrastructure to the needs assessment and making sure that we have the facility if and when the oil and gas again ramps up? We have spinoff for those types of work that they are going to do in the region, such as under the exploration, the seismic, that we have qualified people that can be qualified to go into those camps as certified cooks or maintenance or office administration, some of those things. That’s what we want to look at under infrastructure.
The other one, of course, is something that the region talked about, also, was a training centre, we don’t know what kind, we haven’t yet seen the feasibility study. There are existing facilities right now in Norman Wells. The old Mackenzie House has been shut down as of yesterday. The last person who was out there shut the lights off. It’s an icon building in Norman Wells. It’s a 30-year-old building used by Imperial Oil and other contractors that come into Norman Wells. It’s a facility that has been there for a while. The leadership was looking at it. They don’t have the assessment of the costs and all the other things that go on to look at this facility. Is it worthwhile to the department to look at this and say is it possible, and if not, what else can we use it for if we’re looking at a future trades centre in the Sahtu region? They have the facilities there. The rooms are there. A kitchen, cafeteria style, is there. You can use that facility, so we want to look at that as an opportunity.
We appreciate the work that you’re going to be doing in the Sahtu communities for the energy needs for the schools and some of the things that our schools are desperately needing, such as Colville Lake, and based on that, I would also say I support other schools that need a facility in their communities to get the best type of education, because with that, from our reports that our students in our small communities are not doing well at the grade level. They’re actually one or two grades lagging back from their actual grade level. I don’t know if that is connected to the infrastructure we have or just the way things are at. That’s the quality of education we have now in our small communities.
I always said there are have and have-not communities in the Northwest Territories. There are communities that do not have some of the basic educational funds as in the larger centres, and we have to do without it. That’s a reality. There are communities in the Northwest Territories that are… Like in Canada, there are have provinces and have-not provinces. That’s a reality. By looking at the infrastructure and looking at the Sahtu, we can change that. The department is in the position to make a difference in a child’s life with the education. I supported you with Junior Kindergarten. It’s a good program. I see the benefits happening now in the Sahtu. That’s good. We need that.
Education and culture, we’re starting to move that. Like I said earlier in the House, the Sahtu had three key, essential components to make it work: sovereignty, institutions and culture. The culture is strong in our region. Like I said, I came to a point where in our leadership last week in Deline, the elders spoke strong about our culture. That’s something that’s ingrained in us. I’m looking for the Minister’s department to put infrastructure and culture in our communities.
The last point I want to talk about is the employment. When you look in the Sahtu, you look at the five communities, you look at Norman Wells having the lowest unemployment rate in the Northwest Territories, 4 percent. Unheard of. But when you look at the communities of Deline, Tulita, Colville Lake and Good Hope, our employment rate is only at 40 percent. It’s only 40 percent of our people working there. Why is that? It’s because there’s an industry in Norman Wells that’s working. In our small communities our industry is government contracts – when they’re there – it’s short term, it’s seasonal, but there’s no economy. When we have a high population of young people who are graduating from school, it’s high. Mr. Minister, you went to our grad last year. You were in Fort Good Hope. Like I said in one of my meetings, that one of our Grade 12s, she finished Grade 12 last year and you know what she’s doing this year in Tulita? She’s a custodian janitor because she can’t find work. You know, that tells me something. Even though she’s in Grade 12, she’s doing anything and everything to do to get her work, to find a job. We’ve got to do better than that. The employment rate for us needs to be improved in the Sahtu. People want to work. That’s what I was told last week. We want work. We want to get off government dependency. I’ve got to set my people free.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. I’ll allow the Minister to respond. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. We are currently dealing with the college when it comes to the community learning centres. We’ve heard from some of the communities. I believe there are 23 communities with community learning centres and 10 without, so those are the communities that we hear from. We’ve been dealing with the college at that level.
The Member alluded to a needs assessment at the community level. What we’re doing now is, obviously my department is overseeing the needs assessment and feasibility study 2014-15, and the Member is asking if it will be captured as part of using our existing infrastructure. Yes, it will be part of the study, the scope of the study, which will highlight existing education, training facilities and also infrastructure. Also, using an existing training program and how can we improve in those training programs, as well, whether it be at the local, regional or even at the territorial level. There are other pools of the local jobs and just the skills analysis and the training requirements. Those are areas of interest that have been ongoing for a number of months and a number of years now and it’s finally here. It has given us the tools that we can work with, with the community, with the experts at the community level and at the regional level too.
Schools in the small communities, the Member talked about kids falling behind and whether it was due to infrastructure. This is an area that we have heard over and over from the community leaders, the educators. Due to that fact, we’ve developed the overall Educational Renewal and Innovation, and that will certainly capture and it’s one of the pillars as focusing on small communities, staff and student supports, those types of programs. We also talk about the funding formula as well. Even though we talk about the capital planning process, now those areas will definitely be captured, even the culture preservation that the Member was alluding to, that we are doing various initiatives within our Aboriginal Languages Secretariat that will capture that culture preservation and also our language as well.
The unemployment rate, we’re fully aware that some of the larger centres are quite low, but outlying communities, especially the remote communities, the unemployment rate is high up there, and the Member has indicated that there is just a recent Grade 12 graduate who is a custodian. Those are concerns that are brought to our attention as well. We are working with the stakeholders at the community level to develop some opportunities for those community members, whether it be the Grade 12 graduates, the people that have been trained and even the post-secondary students who are coming back to their communities. So with this needs assessment that is before us, that will capture all those areas of interest from the communities. So, Mr. Chair, this is what we’re doing from the communities’ perspective and also the regional perspective as a department working with the Sahtu region. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Continuing on with general comments with Education, Culture and Employment, I have Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. In the Minister’s previous response, he was talking about schools in small communities and I did a Member’s statement last week. Most particularly for Trout Lake, in the budget here, we have renovations to the Charles Tetcho building. I have consistently made the case that is a community hall that was shared with the school. It looks like the renovations are to make more space for the schooling needs. Sorry, Trout Lake is one of the communities in the North that has a growing population, most particularly from zero to 10 years old, so they definitely need more schooling space.
At the same time, the community is concerned they will be losing community hall space. They advised they use the community hall six days a week for their healing programming, get-togethers, I think it has a sewing room, as well, and it does have a small gymnasium that all residents use.
So their concern is they have been asking for a stand-alone school, a replacement for the original Charles Tetcho School that burnt down some 15, 20 years ago. Pat of the whole process was the population was small and when they built the new community hall, I think Education took charge and they joint ventured with MACA and created a community hall plus a small room for schooling. The agreement and understanding of the community is one day they will get their own stand-alone school. Now the fear is if they do the renovations, they will lose the community hall plus they won’t be getting their own stand-alone school. So that is a concern.
I know that the bulk of the money in the budget here is slated for next year, so what exactly is the department planning? I think there’s planning study money being used right now. How are they engaging the community and what is the exact plan for renovating the building right now? Thanks, Mr. Chair.
Thanks, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Chair. As you see as part of the capital planning process, we’ve identified some funds, as the Member alluded to, for renovations to Trout Lake school, Charles Tetcho School as part of the renovation to the existing building space to be provided with adequate instructional space.
There have been several discussions that have taken place. As Minister responsible for Education and Mr. Beaulieu, who is responsible for Public Works and Services, and MLA Menicoche did visit the community along with the Dehcho Divisional Education Council and my senior staff to review the shortcomings of the school and discuss potential solutions. There have been other meetings, as well, where DDC and my department met on September, 20, 2013, to further discuss temporary measures. This is an area where we are investing as a temporary measure. There is also a long-term plan. There will be a planning study, as I indicated in the House last week, and that is on the way in 2014-15.
Those are some areas, and a needs assessment analysis and operational plan will determine the scope of work. Mr. Chair, if I missed out on key areas, if I could have Ms. Allison elaborate a bit more in detail. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Ms. Allison.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. With respect to the planning study, the funding has been secured for 2014-15. To date, we’ve concluded the education plan, and that consisted of a consultant going in for approximately a week to meet with different community members and gain feedback. At this time we’re putting together a project brief, working with Public Works on that and that will secure design services. Then we will be going back in for more community consultations. So within that project brief, it will list what the project scope should be, but it’s still to be confirmed, based on the architect coming up with some solutions and how to provide the additional space that we need.
To address the concern of the existing community space, Education won’t be using the existing learning space; sorry, the existing community space for the school. That space was funded by MACA and that space is for the community. So we would be looking to address the need for additional instructional space in other manners. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Ms. Allison. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to thank the Minister and staff for that answer. I think it’s important for me to hear that definitely it’s not meant to be a long-term solution. As you do the planning study, I think a few things are important to engage the community, to engage the chief and band council and let them know that. Chief Dolphus Jumbo has told me, he says, Kevin, I’ve seen this before. They’ll come and do temporary, but it will end up permanent. I don’t want to lose that stand-alone school that we’ve been working so hard to get. I think that’s important.
I don’t know if part of the scope of the planning study, perhaps I can get the Minister’s comment on this, is to get a class D estimate on what a whole replacement school would be. It would be interesting for me to know and to share with the community as they do their planning study. I’m pretty sure a class D estimate is not going to be too much work for the department to get those cost figures if the Minister can instruct whoever is doing that planning study to do that work as well.
I was just thinking in terms of funding, as well, Mr. Chair. What is the possibility of accessing Building Canada dollars slated for small communities for educational capital expenditures? I would like to get the Minister’s thoughts on that.
I see I’m running out of time, but I want to get some more clarification in. This is a different topic, but it’s the parking space for the Fort Liard school. If the Minister could address whether that will be completed in the 2015-16 capital budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Lafferty.
