I call the Committee of the Whole to order. We have Tabled Document 1-16(4), NWT Capital Estimates 2010-2011; Tabled Document 18-16(4), Supplementary Appropriation No. 2 (Operations Expenditures), 2009-2010; Tabled Document 19-16(4), Supplementary Appropriation No. 3 (Infrastructure Expenditures), 2009-2010; Committee Report 1-16(4), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the Information and Privacy Commissioner’s 2006-2007 and 2007-2008 Annual Reports; and Committee Report 2-16(4), Standing Committee on Government Operations Report on the Review of the Auditor General on Contracting for Goods and Services in the Northwest Territories. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, committee wishes to consider Tabled Document 1-16(4), NWT Capital Estimates 2010-2011, to review Public Works and Services and Municipal and Community Affairs today. Thank you.
Is committee agreed?
Agreed.
With that, we will take a short break and come back with the Department of Public Works and Services. Thank you.
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I would like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. Prior to the break, we agreed to carry on with the capital estimates for Public Works and Services. With that, I would like to ask the Minister of Finance if he would like to bring in any witnesses. Mr. Miltenberger.
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Does committee agree he brings in his witnesses?
Agreed.
Agreed. Sergeant-at-Arms, escort the witnesses in.
Mr. Minister, for the record, could you introduce your witnesses?
Margaret Melhorn, deputy minister of Finance; Paul Guy, acting deputy minister of Public Works and Services.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Welcome, witnesses. Can we turn to page 5-2, Public Works and Services, department summary, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $27.260 million. That will be deferred. To page 5-4, Public Works and Services, activity summary, asset management, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $18.953 million.
Agreed.
Agreed. Moving on to page 5-7, Public Works and Services, activity summary, Technology Services Centre, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $7.042 million. Agreed?
Agreed.
Agreed. Page 5-10, Public Works and Services, petroleum products division, activity summary, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $1.265 million.
Agreed.
Okay, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I can’t help but make my perennial comment here. This commitment, obviously, I think to date we’ve spent somewhere in the order of $9 million looking after our tank farms and there are new federal regulations requiring additional monitoring equipment and fairly expensive equipment and so on. Of course, we have these tank farms in many of our communities. Again, I hope that this is brought into the accounting equation when we consider other energy infrastructure; for example, the Biomass Strategy implementation, should we get around to that when talking about what we should be spending money on and what we shouldn’t be. This is a very expensive approach and something that’s been avoided big time by Nordic countries. There’s no reason in the world why we can’t avoid these costs and shift the resources, the millions and millions of dollars we’re putting into this, to much better priorities for our people. Just by way of a comment. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister of Finance, did you want to respond to the comment?
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Over the long term we all agree we want to get in the same place. We recognize that we’re in a time of transition. The Nordic countries, to be sure, have advanced their case much faster over the generations than we have. But as we look at the significant $60 million investment to alternative energy that we are putting out there with a plan with biomass and all these other areas for alternative energy, we must recognize that we still have to maintain the current infrastructure as we transition to a different type of energy generation and, hopefully, distribution. Thank you.
I appreciate those comments from the Minister. I didn’t want to ignore completely, either, the efforts we are making in another division here, asset management, which we approved, but during which we’re making significant investments with very reasonable payback times, and I think those are good investments. Those are showing the payback times and whatnot. I think we had some 40 projects in that area. I’m very supportive of getting that work done. There’s at least another 400 of those that we could all come up with, should the resources permit. So I’m very supportive of that approach. Thank you.
We appreciate the support from the Member on these efforts. Thank you.
Page 5-10, Public Works and Services, activity summary, petroleum products division, infrastructure. Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Chair, just a question to the Minister in terms of the Tulita tank farm and shelter that they use. The Minister has written to me, I’ve received some good correspondence in terms of the future plans for the shelter or the shack that we have in Tulita for handling the fuel in our community. I’m just trying to get a sense, I know it’s been delayed and I wanted to ask the Minister in terms of the next couple years before you start putting the real building in there, in between there are some safety mechanisms we should be looking at in terms of the quality of this building in terms of performing its function as a place that we sell products such as the petroleum, diesel and gas in the community. Can the Minister indicate as to what type of measurements would be taken to ensure that this building is in good shape and we don’t get any more complaints from our people in the community that are selling fuel?
Minister of Public Works, Mr. McLeod.
Mr. Chairman, we have had correspondence back and forth on this issue. The Member has raised concern regarding the condition of this operator’s shelter in one of his communities and we have indicated to him that we’d be making some minor upgrades to ensure that the building continues to be useful and viable. This project is in our plans, in our five-year capital needs, and is scheduled to begin in 2011. So we’re very reluctant to invest a whole lot of money as this building is going to be replaced very quickly. Thank you.
Public Works and Services, activity summary, petroleum products division, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $1.265 million.
Agreed.
Agreed. Okay, you can return back to department summary, page 5-2. Department of Public Works and Services, department summary, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $27.260 million.
Agreed.
Agreed. Does the committee agree that we’ve concluded the Department of Public Works and Services?
Agreed.
Agreed. With that, I’d like to thank the Minister and thank the witnesses. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Committee wishes to go on to the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Is committee agreed?
Agreed.
With that, we’ll turn to the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. Mr. Minister, are you going to be bringing in any witnesses?
Yes, Mr. Chair.
Sergeant-at-Arms, escort the witness in. Is committee agreed he brings in his witnesses?
Agreed.
Thank you. Mr. Minister, for the record, could you introduce your witness?
Michael Aumond, deputy minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Welcome, witness. We agreed we’ll move on to Municipal and Community Affairs. I’m looking at the department summary, page 4-2 that we’ll defer to page 4-4. Page 4-4, Municipal and Community Affairs, activity summary, regional operations, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $28.002 million. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to mention again the issue of building codes and our lack of requiring such codes when we transfer this funding to communities. It’s perhaps a sensitive situation in a way, but we have these high standards for ourselves and with that we enjoy the returns and the benefits that that brings. Our operational costs are going down, we’re now saving millions of dollars per year and yet we’re not providing our communities with that same opportunity by requiring that level of building standard.
Now, I recognize that we are, in the longer term, requiring communities to come up with their energy plans and integrated community sustainability plans and so on, but there are no requirements for those building standards to be in those plans. Hopefully the department is profiling this and sharing our experience with them, but it’s almost as if our communities are our poor cousins and we’re not too worried about them having the same benefits and opportunities we enjoy by requiring these standards, and it’s committing them to a fossil fuel future and that’s an expensive future, which limits the options that they have to make best use of their dollars. So I’m wondering if we are planning on putting this requirement in or whether we’re going to continue to let the unfortunately slow progress of developing a bunch of community energy plans that may or may not have these standards in them for our communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Minister Robert C. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s concern. As you pointed out, we are working with communities to have their energy plans and we can’t assume that the communities are incapable of building infrastructure that would be to their advantage to build it according to the highest standards possible. I think we’re starting to see that in a lot of the communities. They understand the savings that they could potentially make. So we’re starting to see that. We’ll continue to work with them and encourage them to look at the standards that they’re building. But I’m fairly confident and I’ve always been confident in the communities’ ability to build good practical infrastructure that would take advantage of all the energy savings possible. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I appreciate the Minister’s confidence in the communities and so on, but you need to base that on evidence. It may be improving, but it’s improving very slowly, as evidenced by, for example, the completion of I believe it’s three community energy plans out of our 33 communities.
We are finessing our communities into a fossil fuel future and that is something we can no longer tolerate as a society. We know what the costs are. There is no excuse for that anymore. Simply putting in these building standards will plug that hole immediately and bring immediate benefits to the communities.
We know, for example, that our public housing has now got an EnerGuide for houses 80 standard, very high quality standards, and we are building those in all our communities frequently and the communities are building those units for us. So the expertise is out there. In fact, we’ve built R2000 units years ago in the communities. So there is experience, there is the capability. What we need to do is put those standards in place as a condition when we transfer these dollars and start helping them enjoy the immediate benefits of that. Thank you.
We’ll continue to work with the communities and ensure that they are looking at building the highest standard. I would hesitate to go as far as imposing it on them. I mean, we can encourage and support them and we’ve tried to devolve a lot of the responsibility of local infrastructure. We’re able to do that with, as the Member mentioned, the Housing Corporation, and we’re able to do that because we basically control the capital dollars so we can impose standards on them as far as the communities go.
I’ll stick to my guns and say that I’m absolutely confident. The communities know best for themselves what’s good for them and if they realize that they can make a significant saving with the money that they’re receiving from the government by building infrastructure that is of the highest quality, I believe they will do that and I believe we’ve seen a few examples of that already happening. So I think we’ll continue to see in the future a lot higher standard buildings being built by the communities, and then they’ll be able to reap the rewards and not use as much of their O and M money to pay for upkeep of these buildings. Thank you.
