Thank you, Mr. Chair. The $3.7 million that the Member referred to will be in ’15-16 to complete the project. The $500,000 for ’14-15 is the capital costs and reflects the expenditures that will be undertaken between now and March 31 and the $3.7 million will be undertaken in ’15-16. Thank you.
Thanks to Mr. Aumond for the explanation. It’s very clear, but again, it confuses me. Why do we not transfer what we’re going to be spending? Why not transfer the other devolution money, the $3.7 million from our devolution money, in the year in which it’s going to be spent? Thank you.
Thank you. We try to undertake the multi-year project and explain those costs as they occur. So the intention would be to raise the $3.7 million that the Member referred to in an infrastructure supp in the February/March session. Thank you.
Okay. I had to think about that. We’ve passed the ’15-16 infrastructure budget. So I guess it’s just anybody looking at it from the outside would have a difficult time following these numbers. I guess it would help, I don’t know if it’s allowed, but I guess it would certainly help if that explanation was included in the text that we have on this page. It would certainly make it easier to understand.
My other question has to do with the transfer, and there are a couple of them in this budget, the transfer of federal buildings to us from devolution and we’re accounting for these. I’d like to know, we see that they’re here as an expense, but I’d like to know from the Minister or from the department how we account for these capital assets that we’ve taken over. There’s an expense here, but are we shelling out money, or where is the revenue coming from, I guess. Is there revenue from the feds to account for this expense that’s recorded here? Thank you.
Thank you. So, for the three buildings that are coming over, including the C.S. Lord geosciences building for ITI, these buildings were assets of the federal government and came over to the GNWT on April 1st when devolution was implemented. So the process we use to transfer those was to get an independent appraisal of the buildings. So for the C.S. Lord, it is the number that we’re considering here and we will book that number and we will amortize that asset and the value of that over the remaining life of the building and that’s how we would account for those assets on our books. Thank you.
Thanks to Mr. Aumond. So there is no revenue anywhere. Like, the funding that we got from the federal government for devolution, was any of that for these capital assets? Thank you.
Thank you. No, it’s non-cash item transfer. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Committee, again, we’re on page 9, Industry, Tourism and Investment, capital investment expenditures, minerals and petroleum resources, not previously authorized, $3.139 million. Total department, not previously authorized, $3.139 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Page 10, Environment and Natural Resources, capital investment expenditures, wildlife, not previously authorized, $43,000. Water resources, not previously authorized, $3.096 million. Total department, not previously authorized, $3.139 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that consideration of Tabled Document 154-17(5), Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 4, 2014-2015, be now concluded and that Tabled Document 154-17(5) be reported and recommended as ready for further consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Motion is being circulated. Motion is in order. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Committee, Tabled Document 154-17(5) will be reported and recommended as ready for consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill.
With that, I’d like to thank our guests here this afternoon. Mr. Lovely, Mr. Neudorf, Mr. Aumond, thanks for joining us. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses out of the House.
In keeping with direction provided by committee, we will now return to Tabled Document 115-17(5), NWT Capital Estimates 2015-2016. We do have one department remaining, the Department of Transportation. With that, we’ll go to Minister Beaulieu to see if he has any witnesses he’d like to bring into the House. Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I do.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort the witnesses into the House.
Minister Beaulieu, if you’d be kind enough to introduce your witness to the House, please.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With me today is the deputy minister of the Department of Transportation, Mr. Russell Neudorf.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Mr. Neudorf, again, welcome to the House this evening. Committee, as we have agreed upon with convention, we will forego any opening comments and we will go straight to general comments. Seeing that there are no general comments, does committee agree to go into detail?
Agreed.
Committee, we’ll defer page 71 of the Capital Estimates and we’ll go directly to page 72, airports, infrastructure investments, $2.879 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Page 74, marine, infrastructure investments, $400,000.
Agreed.
Page 76, highways, infrastructure investments, $107.6 million. Mr. Bouchard.
I had a question about, obviously, the Tuk to Inuvik highway, and this being the budget after we’re expecting an accelerated amount. What is the department’s consideration if the estimated or the projected volume of road we’re supposed to complete isn’t done? Would this money be deleted from the budget or would it just be a carryover to the following year? I’m just wondering about the scheduling. We’re talking about an accelerated schedule. If we don’t meet those accelerated dates, what does that do to this budget? That would be basically the third year, right?
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The money would be carried over to the next year.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Bouchard.
That’s it, Mr. Chair. I think we’ve discussed most of the issues tied to the acceleration and our concerns there.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. I’ll treat that as a comment. Again, committee, page 76, highways. Mr. Bromley.
Just a comment. I think we have covered this to a good degree. Obviously, I don’t think we’ve come up with a response, but I would just note that highways, this division is accounting for 44 percent of our infrastructure budget. That’s probably almost the definition of putting all our eggs in one basket and I don’t think it’s a wise use of our resources.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Again, I’ll treat that as a comment. Mr. Bouchard.
Along with the comments my colleague just made, I guess, we had the opportunity to meet with NTCL today, and they were obviously concerned about this volume, as well, the fact that I think there are some deficiencies in the marine industry that the Department of Transportation will be looking at and investing money into as opposed to doing it all on highways. Obviously, that’s a concern for them as a company that’s committed to marine, and they see the government investing in highways and roads, basically, supporting the diminishing amount of their market, so I guess they definitely had some concerns there. I’m just wondering if the department is looking forward to some of those discussions with marine companies. We’ve obviously brought up the issue of dredging, but there are also issues of docking and dock maintenance in several of the communities in order to get the goods and services into the communities. If I can get some comments from the department on that.
Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The responsibility for navigable waters and dredging and so on in any of the waters is the responsibility of the federal government. However, we have invited NTCL, the main carrier that goes from Hay River up the Mackenzie along the Arctic Coast to participate in our multi-modal Transportation Strategy.
As far as the docks go, we used to receive money for docks. We don’t receive that anymore. We do put some money into docks through our Community Access Program and help some small communities with docks.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Committee, page 76, highways, infrastructure investments, $107.6 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Page 78, road licensing and safety, infrastructure investments, $1.05 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Committee, I’ll get you to return to page 71. Transportation, total infrastructure investments, $111.929 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Does committee agree that consideration of the Transportation capital budget is concluded?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. I’d like to thank the Minister here for us today. I’d like to thank Deputy Minister Neudorf for joining us. If I can get the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort our witness out of the House.
Does committee agree that consideration of Tabled Document 115-17(5), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2015-2016, is also concluded? Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that consideration of Tabled Document 115-17(5), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2015-2106, be now concluded and that Tabled Document 115-17(5) be reported and recommended as ready for further consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. We’re just going to circulate the motion. The motion is in order. The motion is carried.
---Carried
Committee, Tabled Document 115-17(5) will be reported and recommended as ready for consideration in formal session through the form of an appropriation bill.
As agreed upon earlier, we will now turn to Bill 33, An Act to Amend the Elections and Plebiscite Act, No. 2, and we’ll go to the sponsor of the bill, deputy chair of Caucus, Mr. Moses, to see if he has any opening remarks.
