Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, that's very technical in nature. I don't know what exactly months. I'm going to assume in the winter months because it wouldn't make sense in the summer. But I'm going to see if Mr. Brennan can speak to the exact months of the year that we provide salt. Thank you.
Thank you. ADM Brennan.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, so we generally use salt between minus 15 and plus 5. So depending on where you are in the Northwest Territories, but generally speaking from October to late November/Decemberish, and then again in the spring is when we use the majority of our salt. This year has been a cold winter. So I'm willing to bet we never used none since the middle of November because it's been very, very cold, at least in Yellowknife anyway. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. You know, I guess I'll note that my understanding is that most, if not all, of our municipalities don't salt their roads. It's one of the nice things about vehicles up here is they don't rust. And I'm just curious whether we have done any studies of whether this $1 million in salt actually makes the roads safer. I guess, you know, considering the coldest winter months, we're not using any because it's useless, I'm just curious, you know, whether we've we are just too far north to actually be spending this much on salt, or have we done any safety standards, or are we just doing this simply because everywhere down south does it? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, product data on any of the alternative products are reviewed on a regular basis. And it's based on environmental impact; it's based on cost of purchase, storage, handling, and application. Challenges identified through high costs of purchase for storage of these alternatives and required dedicated uses while the salt can be applied by trucks and equipment that are used for other tasks. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'll hold off on any more questions about salt. It just seems like a lot of money to spend on salt considering we don't use it for the coldest and darkest months.
I have some questions about the highway operations budget here. I'll note previous fiscal, it was at $71 million. This year's fiscal, it's jumped about $14 million, and then we're asking for another $3 million. I think it's fair to say if you went back in time and look at the highway operations budget, it has a steady, steady increase. It's not getting any cheaper to maintain our highways.
Can I just get, you know have we done I don't even know how to phrase this. How about I'll start with what is the $3 million increase getting us here this year? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, that is an increase. 2.5 is for increase in some of the amortization adjustments. The $478,000 is for the salt, which the Member and I just spoke about. The 263 is for the collective bargaining agreement increases. Thanks.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I guess perhaps that $88 million is not as bad as I thought it was because I imagine it includes some amortization of things like bridges, and I I'm getting a nod over there.
I guess I want to move on to contract services here, another line item that I strongly suspect has a pretty steady increase upwards. We're spending $69 million in regional operations on contract services. Can I just get a sense of what the biggest contracts are that make up that $69 million? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The variance. So I mean, you look at the different line items on the contract services, line 30, 31, and 33, where you talk about the different increases. So the biggest variance is at $2.5 million in contract services that offset increase in expenditures that are being quoted to materials and supplies in our operation regional operations division, which means less contracts were entered into in 20212022 because of the COVID pandemic.
The increase of a half a million dollars is new lease space for the Hay River Health Social Service Authority in Hay River. That's the increase. Another increase of 1.3 is the lease budget for renewals, as well as the O and M cost escalations. So you look at TSC where we have charge back. Utilities we don't. The government buildings that we lease, we pay the utilities. So I mean, we could charge that back too. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I'm going to just ask again there, because I actually didn't know that leases that the department had would fall under contract services. Can I just in this $69 million, is that the primary driver, then, that the leasing money falls under here, or what are the biggest contracts under this $70 million? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'm going to get no, I'm going to take a stab at this, actually. So no, it's okay. We have infrastructure leases, which is about 44 percent. We have highway operation, 19 percent. We have some of our winter road. So I mean, the list goes on, Madam Chair. If maybe perhaps Mr. Brennan wants to take a little more clarification on that. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Brennan.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, and the Minister is correct that the biggest driver in here is INF. This is our leases that we pay. So we're paying $34 million in leases. Some of our other bigger ones, though, the remaining funds, are our highway operations, airport operations, winter road construction, all of those basically, marine operations that are not our own forces, that's where the majority of that money is going though. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake or sorry, Member for Yellowknife North.
No further questions. I'm sure I'll have questions on the 44 percent of that money that is leases when we get to the information item. Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any other questions under regional operations? Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I would just like a rundown of the airport operations of 17 million 363 by community. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't have that breakdown by community. But airport operations, you look at our main estimates budget and you look at the surplus, the variance, the $1 million, is due to amortization expense that is being miscoded to program services. So in one section, we're taking it out and then we're moving it to the other section.
The decrease is the travel budget reduction. And the other decrease is for the amortization for adjustments for our airport division assets. And we had an increased cost for airport maintenance costs as well as factoring bargaining collective bargaining agreement increase as well. Those are the higher operational costs. In terms of detail, I don't have that with me right now. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Is the airport operations, is that line where they're going to be resurfacing of the runways? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to get clarification. I don't think this is a line item that falls under here. I think it comes part of it does but it is still a federal funding, and I'm going to get I will ask Mr. Brennan to speak about where it falls within the budget, because it was quite complicated because it is a new initiative under a new federal pot. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Mr. Brennan.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, so the runway overlay for Fort Smith runway is actually in capital, and it's funded by the airport capital assistance program for $15 million. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Thebacha.
I don't have any other questions. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Monfwi, did you have questions? Did you have questions?
Yes, thank you. For the regional operations for the highway, active position here it says for Tlicho, it says here we're not part of the North Slave, this one. So I see that well, the Tlicho AllSeason Road is open now, and the last fiscal year for this coming you know, 20212022, it was this nine, and it's still nine within the new fiscal year. Is that number going to change now with the allseason road opened for the that active position that's in page 257?
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Sorry. Thank you, Madam Chair. No, that's not going to change. That's the contractor maintenance part of it. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Monfwi.
Okay, contract services, okay. And so out of these position, how many of these are fulltime or parttime positions?
Thank you. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. 270 are fulltime. There are 13 seasonal. And no parttime at this time. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Monfwi.
No, it's you know, the highway from Highway 3 from that's the most busy highway. And I'm kind of a little bit surprised we have only nine active positions, which I thought it would be more than some of the regions when Tlicho make up six percent of the population. So I'm just a little bit why is that, that, you know, there's only nine positions when that road is busy. It's the most it's busy allseason road so I'm just I'm just asking why there's only nine and other regions have more than us. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'm going to see if Mr. Brennan can add further clarification and to be able to justify why how the regions are separated based on positions. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Brennan.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. So the I guess the factor is looking at for determining how many people work in what we call "the highway beat" is the length of the "beat". And so there's a Yellowknife camp which goes from the end of Highway 4 out near Tibbett Lake up to approximately Stagg River. And then the Tlicho camp takes from Stagg River out to Chan Lake. And then the Fort Providence camp goes from Chan lake basically out to Highway 1 near Red Knife. So nine is basically a standard. It's the most we have in any camp in the Northwest Territories. Some of the camps in South Slave actually only have seven people depending on how close they are to other camps. So we don't look at the population of a community when we're determining. We look at the length of the highway and how many people we need to maintain that safely. Thank you, Madam Chair.
