Thanks to the Minister. I intend no slur with NorthwestTel, but obviously they will have that possibility, that potential. This is the proverbial captive audience. That is why I am saying it seems clear there is a need to provide some support to communities to consider and assess alternatives and make sure they are able to pick out the best ones and also that they have some expertise to draw on to make sure that they’re not being taken advantage of as a captive audience in our valley communities. Thank you.
Some communities’ thinking and capacity is well along, like Inuvik. I know the community of Deline have their thinking very clear about what they see going forward with their microwave connection and wanting to become the sole provider for the community. Every independent service provider, every ISP will have the capacity to make the case. This is a business enterprise that, yes, communities may choose to pursue themselves or they would support somebody coming in that has the skills that’s prepared to wire or put in the fibre optic where it’s necessary and hook up the town for the full service of the fibre optic connection. So, we believe that opportunity is there. We have folks on the ground in the regions, in the communities on the economic development side that will be working with community groups, businesses and regional centres, taking calls, and we are standing ready to work with communities as they look at that final mile piece. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. That sounds good. I wonder, though, if the Minister could work with his colleague and provide us with an outline of exactly how our economic development officers are aware of this challenge for communities and helping out in helping them select the best possible options and cost benefits for their access to this. Thank you.
We will pull something together that will capture that as per the Member’s request.
I just want to point out that in my mind the final mile piece has always been where the business opportunity is and we would be there to provide support as opposed to going to communities and getting potentially into the telecommunication business. So between the providers that are there, the ISPs, the communities with us playing a support role, we want to make sure that final mile gets implemented. But we will, on that basis, pull together the information for the Member in the life of this Assembly. Thank you.
Thank you. I have no more questions. I have no problems with the briefing laid out by the Minister there and I’ll look forward to that information. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Committee, we’re on page 32, budget, treasury and debt management, infrastructure investments, $91 million.
Agreed.
Agreed. Page 35, Office of the Comptroller General, infrastructure investments, $1.325 million.
Agreed.
We’ll go back to page 31, Department of Finance, total infrastructure investments, $92.325 million.
Agreed.
Committee is agreed we’re concluded the Department of Finance?
Agreed.
Thank you, Mr. Aumond. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort the witness out of the Chamber. Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. I’ll go to Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Next in line is Health and Social Services. We would like to leave Health and go to the Department of Transportation.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Mr. Bromley, sir.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move we report progress.
---Defeated
I’ll just confirm with Mr. Beaulieu if you have witnesses and they’re prepared to come into the Chamber.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I do.
Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort in the witnesses.
Committee, we’re on page 81, Department of Transportation. I’ll go to general comments on the Department of Transportation. General comments. Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’m really glad to see, as I mentioned, the Building Canada Plan underway once again. I am a little disappointed it wasn’t in place for last season, but here we are today, the first year that this funding is starting up again. Lots has been done, about three-quarters completed, and hopefully we have time, if the weather cooperates, that this gets finished and we have a parking garage upgrades in Aklavik. Hopefully, we can have this done as soon as possible. Within the month would be great.
---Laughter
But also under Willow River, as I mentioned before, it’s really important that the department identifies some funds to put this bridge in place. The contractors didn’t feel it would cost $2 million, but that price has come from the department under their assessment as to installing, drilling the pilings, which shouldn’t be very much to put this bridge in place. But with the help from the department and funding, I hope this bridge can be put in place this winter, otherwise it will be just sitting on the land as a possible injury that can happen with people travelling out on the land in the winter not seeing this if it’s not flagged properly. We don’t want any accidents happening.
Also, the Louis Cardinal hull upgrade, many of my constituents want to know when we are due for a new ferry. This ferry is well over 25, 30 years old now and it’s pretty clear it’s time for an upgrade. I’m sure with today’s technology there’s a far better way to provide this service.
With that, those are my general comments. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Blake. I’ll go to Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The parking garage upgrade is scheduled to begin this year. There was some work done on the upgrade. Some of the money was spent on the parking upgrade.
The Willow River Bridge is part of the Access Roads Program. The Access Roads Program, as committee knows, is a program where there is just a little over $1 million and sometimes a little under $1 million spent in the program each year. So what we try to do with some of the projects is we try to support some of the programs in a larger way. This is one of the programs that we tried to support and we knew going in that it would be a substantial cost to put the bridge in.
There may be another way to do it where it would be less of a cost, but we knew it would be a fairly substantial cost to install a bridge. We don’t have the money in the Access Program. As I indicated in the House, if we intend to continue to finish this road and put the bridge in, then we would probably have to do it under regular capital where this actual project would be viewed as larger capital but just a slight issue with that. As we know, the system is if we’re going to spend some serious infrastructure money, it’s usually on our infrastructure contribution agreement, usually a lot less and it’s not an asset that we retain.
The Louis Cardinal Ferry is due for an upgrade, as the Member indicates. I’m just checking to see if this ferry is scheduled for replacement. My feeling is that it isn’t, that we wouldn’t be spending money on it to extend, we’d only be spending money on it to extend the life for a little while until we did find some capital dollars or replace it with another asset that we already have. Currently, we have money in for this year and this coming summer and we will be coating the hull of the ferry and that’s what we have in front of us today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
It sounds like we have a possible supplementary coming about here with the Willow River Bridge. I’m just kidding.
The only other comment I wanted to make was I’m really happy to see we’re starting to do some brushing along the highway that’s with the Building Canada Plan funding, I believe. Some has been done just as you leave Inuvik to the airport, roughly 20 kilometres underway at the moment from Tsiigehtchic, 20 miles north towards Inuvik. This brushing is beginning here, which is great. Anywhere else you travel in the country, whether it’s leaving here from Yellowknife, you have almost 20 metres on each side cleared for your visibility. This isn’t the case up along the Dempster Highway, but I’m glad to see that this work is finally beginning. Very important because a lot of times we have some near misses. People almost hit moose or caribou and it’s…
Mr. Chair, is there a problem? As I said, it’s bad to see, you know a couple of times, as I mentioned, people almost hit moose and caribou. You know, as we start with this brushing, my residents are very happy with it. In the years to come, I can’t wait to see the project completed all through the Dempster. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
The brushing is something that we are doing under the separate contract from the Building Canada Plan. The Building Canada Plan will be the reconstruction of the Dempster Highway, Highway No. 8, and the brushing is the separate contract. We are trying to do it every couple of years if possible. There’s a lot of highway to be brushed and I’m noticing that most of the highways now are getting some brushing done. For safety reasons we want to continue to do, right away, brushing as much as possible. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Committee, we’re on general comments for Transportation. General comments. Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. I do have other issues that I’ll address in the detail, but just overall this has been a significant week, beginning last week with the potential claims of the Inuvik-Tuk Highway there. My initial concern and my original concern was about should the claims be successful about taking away from other capital projects, especially in ’16-17, so I’d like to ask the Minister: how is the department and how is this government going to handle the potential claim, should it be accepted, especially when we’re talking about capital items and transportation in ’16-17? You know, as MLAs we all fought pretty hard to take care of our constituency needs and I would say, for example, Highway No. 7. Just how would it impact, of that magnitude of $32 million, our future capital expenses as planned in this House, Mr. Chair? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Minister Beaulieu.
HON. TOM BEAULIEU:
Well, all the more reason for the Minister to make a commitment that he won’t move any money from our future capital. Like I said, that’s a concern of mine and we all work hard as an Assembly, Members on this side of the House with Cabinet, and a couple of weeks ago when we went through the capital budget, we’ve come here, we’ve got a fairly good plan that everybody’s agreeable with, but the impact of $32 million I just sure don’t want to see it being amended or changed because there is a successful claim there.
I’d just like to ask the Minister one more time what are his thoughts about that movement forward. We try to get assurance in this House that nothing will be done throughout the election period, so I’d just like to ask the Minister what are his thoughts about how long will a claims process take, commit not to do anything during the election period. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Excuse me. Just in the interest of getting the proper answer, we’ll take a 10-minute break until the support staff get here. Thank you very much. Sorry, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Two things: that the commitment has already been made as the claim process runs its course that we would be keeping committee and Members apprised of that.
In regards to the concern of the Member for Nahendeh, whatever comes out of that will negatively impact the next budget. Clearly, we’re going to agree to this budget. We’re going to go ahead with that and the incoming Assembly will pick up all the pieces for everything, look at all the challenges. But this project and whatever comes out of that claims process will not be tacked on to the capital plan where all of a sudden we have to carve away projects. It will be part of the broad consideration as we do our business as an Assembly, those of us who are going to be back here. This is just to give the assurance to the Member that it’s not automatically $30 million off the next capital budget. You know, worst case scenario. The hope is, as Minister Beaulieu has indicated, that at the end of the day we may sort this out and handle it with the existing budget, and we will keep Members apprised of that, but it won’t negatively affect constituencies and other communities.
Thank you, Minister Miltenberger. We’ll just take a five minute break. Ms. Bisaro. Sorry.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.
---Defeated
We’ll carry on after a five-minute break.
---SHORT RECESS
Committee, we’ll resume general comments on the Department of Transportation.
We’re on page 81. We’ll come back to this page after we’re concluded the department. Page 82, Department of Transportation, airports, infrastructure investments, $1.201 million. Mr. Moses.
Just on page 82 and talking about the airports, I know it is on the list and it’s something that I’ve brought up during general comments when we got started with the infrastructure process. I just wanted to ask the Minister, when do we expect to have an update on the work that’s being done for the runway, the survey work and all that information? When can we expect to get a report on that and make a decision? Also, just with the airport, as well, I know it is on the books to be replaced, the airport facility, and I’m just wondering what the plans are for that as well.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re just getting some detail. I’ll ask the deputy to respond to the question.
Thank you. Deputy Minister Neudorf.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. We have funding to repair the dip at the Inuvik Airport runway. We’ve done two temporary repairs on it as we continue to gather additional technical information. This fall we did gather some more of that and we’re going to analyze that this winter and come up with what we hope will be a permanent repair this coming summer. Next summer we do plan to carry over, or ask the money to be reinstated next year to complete that dip.
In terms of the air terminal building, that is in the capital planning process. We are starting a planning study for the air terminal building replacement project this year.
Thank you, deputy minister. Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just further, in terms of the facility itself and the runway, has there been any discussion on lengthening that runway so that it can actually service bigger jets? I know Whitehorse has that opportunity to bring in international flights and with the Inuvik-Tuk Highway coming on board, are there any discussions on lengthening that runway at the Inuvik Airport?
Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The department is working with DND doing some studies for that possibility that we would handle the larger jets in Inuvik.
With that work that they’re doing with DND, is a report expected to come to the House or whether or not the GNWT would have to cover any costs that might be associated with it, federal, like a joint partnership? I know we are doing a lot of, I guess, sovereignty work and a lot of exercises. We had a big exercise this year with the military, and I’m just wondering if the GNWT would also be committing any type of infrastructure dollars to that and if the report will be coming to this House as well.
So far we have come to the House for money for the studies and we are continuing at a pace of DND. We don’t know when there may be a report as a result of our studies or a plan as a result of the studies, but when one is developed, when we do write a report or a plan on the extension of the airport, we will come back to the House with the plan.
Thank you, Minister Beaulieu. Committee, we are on page 82, airports, infrastructure investments, $1.251 million. Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I notice on here we have a product listing called runway stabilization. It talks about a special liquid blend we are going to be applying to runways. Can we get a little bit of information about what is EK-35 liquid application? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Minister Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. EK-35 is on the small runways, gravel runways. It is a non-corrosive product that also covers the surface and does prevent dirt from flying up into the air as well. It is essentially a product that they use for the airports so that there is dust abatement on the strips, all the gravel strips.
