Thank you, Mr. Guy. Continuing on with general comments, I have Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. As we work with Public Works and Services here just reviewing the much needed Public Works and Services shop replacement here in Fort Simpson and centralizing the carpentry, plumbing and electrical trade space, a couple of questions. In the document here it says shop replacement 2016-17. I just wonder if that’s a typo at all. Most particularly, we’re reviewing capital estimates for 2015-16.
When the Minister is responding, I’m presuming, as well, that he’ll be accessing the biomass steam heating plant for heating the new shop building as well.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The majority of the budget for the capital cost for the new shop in Fort Simpson is slated for 2015-16. We have spent some money already on that capital project and there will be some money spent in 2016-17, as well, but as I indicated, the majority of it will be in this fiscal year that we’re talking about today. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Mr. Menicoche.
Yes, okay, a further response, yes.
Sorry about that, Minister. I’ll go to Deputy Minister Guy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, as the Minister has indicated, that project is scheduled to start this fiscal year. The funding that’s in this capital plan is to complete it in ’15-16, and there’s a small amount of warranty money in the following year as the Minister said.
In terms of biomass, our intent is to locate it in an area close to our existing central heat plant, which has a biomass boiler in it and that biomass boiler has currently got capacity to carry the heat load of this new building. So we’ll be able to decommission the old buildings and heat our shop primarily off biomass. Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Guy. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much. So it is clear for me, it’s completion in ’16-17 and using the biomass sustainability plan currently.
My other question would be Public Works and Services is responsible for the planning studies for capital projects and the one that they’re particularly looking at in Fort Simpson, as well, is the replacement health centre. I’ve been trying to get some certainty on that work and with the community of Fort Simpson about engaging them in a planning study as we move forward.
I guess one of the big things is about the location of the new health centre. So I know that they’ve done some work with a planning study. If I can get the department to advise me what the next phases are in moving forward with a planning study for the Fort Simpson Health Centre. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are working closely with the Department of Health and Social Services and the RFP for the planning study will be going out very soon. It was scheduled to go out this fall, but we’re getting close to winter here, but it’s scheduled to go out very soon.
Thank you very much. So I guess the main thing is to indicate to the leadership of Fort Simpson, the village, the band and the Metis Council there about their intent to engage them as they move forward with the planning study. I think that’s important. As well, I know there was some preliminary work done as well. I guess what’s important to the community is exactly where the new facility may or will be located. So a bird’s eye view, has the department had any overview of potential locations? Thanks.
Thank you. The issue with the land and location has been resolved. I don’t know the exact location, but perhaps the deputy minister can add to this in a minute.
As far as the communications, we will work with the department and Health and Social Services to make sure that as the project moves forward, we’re communicating with the leadership in Fort Simpson.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Deputy Minister Guy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s my understanding, and I have to confirm this, but I believe they’ve identified the former Deh Cho Hall site. Thank you.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Guy. Mr. Menicoche.
Okay, thank you very much. That’s important information because I’m not too sure how the land is designated. I think currently it’s designated as an educational reserve. What processes would be undertaken here to transfer it to regular GNWT as it were I guess? Is there any difficulties with accessing that land, would be the overall question.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We had some negotiations but the land issues have been resolved. Perhaps if the Member wants some detail on some of the issues we may have had or how we were working with the Department of Health, I’ll ask that the deputy minister respond to the Member.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Mr. Guy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. My understanding is the Department of Health is working closely with Education and with the Department of Lands as well as, I think, the community council on that issue. I believe that they had come to the resolution that that was the proposed site. I will have to get back to the department to confirm that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Guy. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much. Like I said, the community wants to be engaged, particularly with that site. That site has been under some discussion, but as long as they engage the community and the residents, I’m sure that a significant capital project of this kind should involve the whole community, not only the land but the type of structure that’s going to be built.
I’ve mentioned it on several occasions. I think other communities like Hay River were missing some long-term beds. It was actually picked out after the building got constructed. The same thing in Fort Providence. After the building started being constructed, it was pointed out by community members that it was not going to have a morgue. Those are the kind of little details that the community should see. They should see the type of building that’s being built, what’s being put in there. I think all those are worthy for the community to see and to have complete community involvement. As well, there may be suggestions about making it more local, or I’m not too sure what kind of standard design it will have, but I’m sure the people wouldn’t mind input into the design of it as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We would be pleased to do the communications with the community, keeping the community advised on how things are moving forward, getting their input, consulting with them and, of course, also working with the Department of Health and Social Services as we will as a government go together to consult to ensure that what the community wants is what the community gets.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Next on my list I have Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a couple of questions for the Minister. I see there are no plans on here for Fort McPherson. They’re in need of a replacement of their Public Works and Services shop there. I’d like to ask the Minister what are the plans moving forward for replacing that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our schedule here shows that this year, this fiscal year that we’re in, we had put some money in the budget to work on the PWS shop. So our understanding is that work was completed. So if it’s not then we will get to the department and back to the Member to find out what may have occurred. We’re surprised to hear that nothing had happened. That’s because it was approved in the budget the last fiscal year.
Mr. Chair, also the community of Aklavik is very thankful that you did replace the shop there. I know they don’t operate Public Works and Services in Tsiigehtchic. It is contracted out. Moving forward, the community would like to see in the near future a plan to go back operating a Public Works shop out of the community of Tsiigehtchic in the future. Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I would indicate to the Member that we will look at the regular process if a decision is made to go back to providing a services shop in Tsiigehtchic in the future. We would certainly put it through the regular process.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. I will remind Members that we are on capital budget. Next on my list I have Mr. Bromley. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just had a couple of things. The first one is I am wondering where we are at with energy standards. I always bring that up. It is nice to get a progress report. I know that there has been some consideration at the national level to instigate new standards. I’m not exactly sure where we’re at with that. Maybe I will just start with that.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Beaulieu.
Mr. Chair, I will have the deputy minister respond to the standards.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Deputy Minister Guy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have our Good Building Practices which define our energy standards for our government-owned buildings. They are based on the National Energy Code and meeting the requirements of the National Energy Code or exceeding them. I think our target is 10 percent better than the most recent version of the National Energy Code. I don’t have the dates in front of me. I know I provided them before and I apologize for not having it here today, but the next round of the National Energy Code is due in the imminent future. I believe it is less than a year away. At that point we will be reviewing our standards again to see how we do with the new code and we will be adjusting our targets accordingly.
We are going back to review and we have just sort of started the internal discussions on updating our Good Building Practices around some of the more recent developments in the area of technology. Those are things that we can put in there now around lighting that wasn’t available four or five years ago and things like energy efficient LED lighting can now become much more standard as part of our day-to-day routine business. Some of the things around biomass, as well, are things we are looking at putting in there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Guy. Mr. Bromley.
Mr. Chair, thanks for that update. I knew it was coming but I guess it’s not here yet, the new ones. In terms of the lifecycle renewals that we do, are they designed typically to meet those standards, as well, when we go in and bump up a building? Do we use those same standards for that work? Thank you.
Mr. Chair, I didn’t quite catch the question. I think the question was, when we do a retrofit, do we employ our Good Building Practices? If I can get that confirmed, thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Bromley, if you could just ask that question again, that would be great.
Mr. Chair, the term I actually used was lifecycle renewals, a term I pulled out of the document, but essentially that is it. I’m just wondering: under our maintenance work that we are doing, the sort of catch-up to try and reduce our deferred maintenance, do we subscribe to those standards? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, that’s a good question. Wherever possible we do. For example, in a major retrofit project like the health centre in Fort Smith is a good example where we did a complete retrofit of that building from top to bottom. That was done in accordance with our Good Building Practices and those standards. Other projects, envelope upgrades, things like that, we apply the Good Building Standards wherever we can, and when we do lifecycle replacements of heating systems, alarm systems, lighting systems, we apply the standards of the Good Building Practices as well.
Thanks for that response. My last question is: Given the ongoing climb in utility costs and environmental costs, and I believe this government has committed to addressing both of those, has the department set out a schedule for converting all of our infrastructure to renewable energy like some annual targets and a long-term plan? I know we’re working by guess and by golly, and as we have resources and so on, but obviously, a bit of a methodical plan and some goals might help direct the resources needed to actually achieve this sort of thing. I guess I’d ask the Minister, do we have such a schedule, and if not, is that something the Minister would consider getting done on his watch?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think that we will try to provide some detail. We have done a lot of work in energy efficiency on the midlife retrofits. Each time we’ve done that we’ve tried to be as energy efficient as possible, and biomass. We have a Capital Asset Retrofit Fund which is just savings from the operation of the buildings that we’re doing, so eventually as we do more buildings, we’re getting more savings, so that budget just continues to grow as we continue to do more buildings, and we’re saving a lot of money in fuel and we’re reducing greenhouse gases substantially from the buildings that we own.
In as far as the future and the planning goes, what we’re planning to do next and so on, I’d like to have the deputy minister provide some of the detail for the Member.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Deputy Minister Guy.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. A couple things we do, we do set sort of a benchmark around greenhouse gas reduction for the department on an annual basis, and we track it and report it in our annual report, which we publish every year. We also, through our Capital Asset Retrofit Program and our energy auditing program, go through and look at the GNWT assets and we set benchmarks around how they’re performing. The lower performing ones we try to move more towards what we would consider a high performing building. That’s one of the targets we set as we address the various projects through the Capital Asset Retrofit Program. We try to increase the benchmark performance of the various assets that we operate and maintain.
There are about 800 assets in our portfolio and it just takes some time to move them towards a better performing level. However, there is also the challenge that we see around new and emerging technology, so what wasn’t feasible perhaps five years ago is feasible today. Things like biomass were not things we were talking about, per se, 10 years ago; however, it’s a mainstream today. The emerging technology around LED lighting that I spoke of is something now we have to go back and look at lighting retrofits perhaps again going forward to help improve our benchmark performance. What we’re seeing with solar may provide some opportunity. These are all things that we will have to look at as we continue to improve the efficiency of our buildings.
Thank you, Deputy Minister Guy. Committee, we’re on Tabled Document 115-17(5). Does the committee agree to go to detail?
