Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following nine documents, entitled “Oil and Gas Engagement Strategy Report – Pathways to Petroleum Development;” a “Follow-up Letter for OQ 762-17(5): Supports for Sewing and Beading Craftwork;” a “Follow-up Letter for OQ 831-17(5): Business Incentive Policy;” a “Follow-up Letter for OQ 833-17(5): Morel Mushroom Harvesting Concerns;” a “Follow-up Letter for OQ 835-17(5): Morel Mushroom Harvest;” a “Follow-up Letter for OQ 855-17(5): Responsible Energy Exploration and Development;” a “Follow-up Letter for OQ 864-17(5): Water Safety and Hydraulic Fracturing;” a “Follow-up Letter for OQ 840-17(5): On-the-Land Rehabilitation Programs;” and a “Follow-up Letter for OQ 868-17(5): RCMP Presence in Tsiigehtchic.” Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following seven documents, entitled “GNWT Response to Motion 36-17(5): Workplace Safety at Stanton Territorial Hospital;” “GNWT Response to CR 12-17(5): Report on the Review of Bill 36: Health and Social Services Profession Act;” “GNWT Response to Motion 39-17(5), Domestic Violence Death Review Committee;” “GNWT Response to Motion 40-17(5), Wellness Centre at Stanton Territorial Hospital;” “GNWT Response to Committee Report 18-17(5), Report on the Review of Bill 47, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act;” a “Follow-up Letter for OQ 813-17(5): Health and Social Services Authority Vacancies;” and a “Follow-up Letter for OQ 871-17(5): Fort Providence Health Centre.”
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following document, entitled “GNWT Response to Committee Report 14-17(5): Report on the 2014 Review of the Official Languages Act.”
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Mr. Clerk.
Mr. Speaker, I’d like to table a response to a petition provided by the Honourable David Ramsay, Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, in response to a petition tabled by Mr. Bob Bromley, Member for Weledeh, on June 2, 2015.
Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Item 15, notices of motion. Item 16, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Mr. Abernethy.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on Thursday, October 1, 2015, I will move that Bill 68, An Act to Amend the Child and Family Services Act, No. 2, be read for the first time.
Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. Mr. Dolynny.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to return to item 14 on the order sheet, tabling of documents. Thank you.
---Unanimous consent granted
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to table a document, called “Measuring GNWT Fiscal Performance and Accountability.”
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Item 17, motions. Item 18, first reading of bills. Item 19, second reading of bills. Item 20, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Minister’s Statement 221-17(5), Sessional Statement; and Tabled Document 281-17(5), Capital Estimates, 2016-2017, with Mrs. Groenewegen in the chair.
I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. Colleagues, what is the wish of committee today? Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We wish to proceed with opening comments on the capital estimates.
Okay. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
We’ll proceed with general comments after a brief break.
---SHORT RECESS
Good afternoon, committee. I’d like to call Committee of the Whole back to order. Committee, we have agreed to consider Tabled Document 281-17(5), Capital Estimates, 2016-2017. We’ve also agreed to begin with general comments. Does the Minister of Finance wish to bring witnesses into the House? Minister Miltenberger.
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Before we bring witnesses in, committee, we’re going to actually ask the Minister if he has opening comments. Minister Miltenberger.
I am here to present the Capital Estimates, 2016-2017 of the Government of the Northwest Territories. These estimates represent $292 million in appropriations for government and $28 million for community infrastructure investments in the 2016-2017 fiscal year.
These estimates do not include appropriations for housing infrastructure proposed by the NWT Housing Corporation in 2016-2017, totalling $22 million. The appropriation for these investments will be sought during review of the 2016-2017 Main Estimates by the 18th Legislative Assembly. The NWT Housing Corporation’s proposed 2016-2017 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 2016-2017 will be $342 million.
Major highlights of these estimates include:
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$91 million to seek appropriation authority to record the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link Project on the GNWT’s balance sheet;
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$69 million for highways and winter roads across the NWT. This includes funding for the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway and the first bundle of highway projects submitted under the new Building Canada Plan;
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$60 million for health facility replacements, renovations and information system upgrades, including funding required for the renovation of the Stanton Territorial Hospital project;
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$28 million to continue to contribute to community infrastructure needs;
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$20 million to begin replacing the current air tanker fleet that support forest fire operations.
Members have expressed concerns over the lack of funding allocated to NWT schools in government capital plans. In response to these concerns, these estimates include $400,000 to provide planning study funding for the J.H. Sissons and Mildred Hall school renovations in Yellowknife.
Looking ahead, the GNWT is facing the difficult challenge of maintaining existing assets, improving housing stock and meeting legislative requirements unless steps are taken to free up fiscal resources.
Regardless of this challenge, the GNWT will continue to ensure our limited capital funding is used to support the territory’s essential infrastructure base so that programs and services can continue to be delivered, aim to make investments in strategic infrastructure that will better position the territory and all of Canada to maximize economic opportunities of the North, and to look at options to mitigate the impact of climate change.
I am prepared to review the details of the 2016-2017 Capital Estimates document. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. We’ll try this again. Does the Minister have any witnesses he’d like to bring in the House?
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Thank you, Minister. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
If I can get the Sergeant-at-Arms to please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.
Minister Miltenberger, could you please introduce your witnesses to the House.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary to the FMB; Mr. Paul Guy, deputy minister, Public Works and Services; and Mr. Russ Neudorf, deputy minister of Transportation.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. Mr. Neudorf, Mr. Guy, Mr. Kalgutkar, welcome back to the House.
Committee, it is my pleasure to open up the floor now to general comments on Tabled Document 281-17(5), Capital Estimates, 2016-2017. With that, I’m calling general comments. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Welcome to the Minister and his staff. I appreciate the opportunity to speak briefly in response to this document, the capital budget. I don’t think it’s any secret that our population is struggling with the cost of living and that infrastructure that addresses the cost of living is a priority for both our people and our Members here.
On that basis, I’m a little disappointed, as the Minister knows, at the lack of community energy projects that will address in a long-term, comprehensive, meaningful way the cost of energy, both heating and electricity, across the Northwest Territories. I’m very open to any other way that we can pursue those options, but I don’t see it in the capital plan here. A big disappointment since we’ve been struggling with this for a long time, and although we’ve had a lot of money available, we haven’t really done all that much with it and a lot of it is left being unspent.
I think some of the options we have are to pursue these through the Building Canada Fund, a decision we’ve chosen not to do. Instead, going off after very expensive highway projects that don’t really address the cost of living very effectively within the communities themselves in the same way and in a way that’s really needed.
I’m pleased that the fibre optic line is going ahead and making good progress. I’m disappointed that we weren’t able to, I suppose, administratively find a way to spread that cost over a couple of fiscal years, but that didn’t seem to be doable.
I think we’ve spoken lots about the Stanton Territorial Hospital. I don’t have a clue what’s going on there. I don’t know what the budget is anymore for that hospital and I’d appreciate learning anything more. I’m learning lots on the street, but I prefer to hear it from the Minister and at least have it confirmed and maybe learn what the budget is now for that project and what the implications are for the current structure both financially and in terms of serving our infrastructure needs.
In the area of education and child care, I think, again, we’ve discussed a little bit of the child care challenges we have. We’re sort of a third world country, and despite the fact of us harping on this for a long time, there is still not much progress at all in that area and I don’t see much reflected here. We know that Aurora College, again a perennial topic, speaking specifically about the Yellowknife Campus, I think the Minister is aware that we’ve done a couple of committee tours over the last two Assemblies of the Aurora College Yellowknife Campus and they’ve been eye-openers. I don’t know if the Minister has had occasion to do that or not, but we were simply going down the hallway from office to office, so we’d have to move into somebody’s office to allow people to get by in the hallway. Talk about a bunch of sardines squeezed into a tin can. So, I don’t know how long we want to put that off. It’s not even on the 20-year plan that I’m aware of. So, that’s certainly a real gap and a real disappointment.
I’d just like to talk about a new subject and get this on the plan and that’s a new school for Detah, replacing the Kaw Tay Whee School. In 1969 we put in a couple of portables and connected them, and eventually we put in a couple more portables in 1988 and did a little renovation to them so they could have a storeroom space and a little bit of shelving. That was done in ‘13-14. So, to date, they have four classrooms, and in speaking to the Minister, they have a junior kindergarten class, a kindergarten class and eight grades going to that four-room school. That somewhat old and dilapidated portable structures four-room school. The community is to the point where they are rightfully thinking they deserve better. So, I’d like to very much suggest that we get that on the list.
There are many good things in the budget that we’re happy to see going forward, I’m happy to see going forward. I particularly appreciate the Minister’s recognition of the need to get after the long overdue Mildred Hall and particularly J.H. Sissons renovations with planning studies for those two facilities, recognizing that some of the work that was done quite some time ago was not completed. So it’s time to get after those. You know, in general our education budget for capital has been very, very modest year after year since we completed the Inuvik school, and so I think there’s a bit of a catch-up to be done there.
I’m happy to see the work going forward in the Tu Nedhe…Nahendeh, sorry. Couple of the schools there, one constructed and some planning studies. I know those are overdue as well.
Mr. Chair, I think I’ll leave it at that. I’ve highlighted a few areas. I don’t think there are any surprises to the Minister, but I would welcome any comments and any suggestions on how we can get those things done that I don’t see in the budget but would have liked to have seen. I’ll leave it at that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll allow the Minister to reply. Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Member’s comments. In regards to the issue of lack of community energy projects, I think there’s a number that have been put in, either in the community or through NTPC, if I could refer to Colville Lake, for example, or Lutselk’e, where we’ve got power purchase agreements. We spent hundreds of thousands of dollars taking a look at Deline. We’ve got biomass, albeit in our own buildings for the most part. We’ve promoted and are helping build an industry now.
I appreciate there’s a need to do more. We have an expression of interest coming out, for example, for one megawatt, five megawatt, 10 megawatts of wind and/or solar in Yellowknife in the Snare system to see what the marketplace is telling us. So, I appreciate that the Member would like us to do more, and we are going to come forward. There are some big ticket items that we’re going to have to manage. For example, putting in wind up between Inuvik and Tuk, which would probably be in the $50 million range to do nine megawatts of power could have a dramatic impact on diesel consumption. So, it’s not that there’s a shortage of projects, it’s more of a shortage of adequate resources to do them all.
The issue of the roads, I would suggest that if you had the Wrigley to Norman Wells portion of the road built, that would be a single great decreaser of the cost of living up in the Sahtu. That type of connection is critical, I think. We have the same kind of challenge going through the Tlicho and then the road into the mines that would help prolong the mine life and add considerably to the continued economic good fortune when it comes to the diamond mines. So we would have to manage those as well.
There’s a briefing on Stanton tonight at the rise of the House. But clearly, it’s a $350 million project that’s going to proceed. It’s going to get a new hospital. It’s all good news. There’s going to be increased services. It’s going to demonstrate to you that it’s going to come in on budget and on time the way it’s structured. So, we’ll spend the time that committee needs on that tonight.
The issue of child care, daycare, those types of things, that is a discussion to be had again. There’s no money in the budget. The agreement, when we did the capital plan, was to make it as status quo as possible, recognizing that this is a very unique circumstance for the first time where the outgoing Assembly is doing the capital plan for the incoming Assembly for the first year, just because of the late date of the election and the need to make sure we don’t lose the building season. So, we’ve done our best to honour that direction, to keep it as status quo as possible.
The college campus, I agree, has been on the books for a long time. One of the discussions that has already come up is with the old Stanton Hospital, what’s going to be the use for that, and we have to look at all options and that’s a building that’s still going to have some life left to it. One of the considerations may be that Yellowknife college campus is a potential.
The new school for Detah, we’ll make note of that and I appreciate, and I haven’t been there for a while but I have been to the school, it has seen better years. I appreciate the comments on Sissons and the comments on schools in Nahendeh. Thank you.
