Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So Madam Chair, I mean, it's the same answer in as much as the Member is saying it's the same question which is that, you know, other than I think the Yukon, other jurisdictions don't publish the costs because of the concern that everyone will just simply bid to the known budget rather than trying to put some effort in to minimize costs. So yes, I mean, and just to distinguish it's, you know, actual costs as they are incurred certainly are made available and those updates are made available. But it's the budget that is the issue because it's the budget that we don't want someone there is a risk of someone, you know, bidding up to the maximum of the budget rather than making an effort to find ways to minimize those costs. Now, the specific example given with respect to information projects, perhaps having given those general comments on that specific I'd suggest it go to Mr. Wind, please.
Thank you. Mr. Wind.
Thank you, Madam Chair. My understanding is that it is not our practice to disclose the full budget amounts for multiyear projects. Many of the IT projects are in fact singleyear budgets and so they're there as they exist a single year of an expenditure or appropriation. So if it is a singleyear project, then the budget you see or the appropriation you see is in fact the budget.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, thank you. I guess I'll also reiterate another concern is I really wish that when the capital budgets were estimated or were included that some public information was included about each of these so I did not have to go through each one and ask for a status update. But I'm going to ask for a couple here.
The student records module replacement I see completed for 20252026. Can someone just confirm to me, I believe we had previously passed money, and I thought this was for ECE, for a student record system and then I believe at one point the Minister of ECE said we went out to tender it and then it came back and way over budget and then the company didn't want to do it, or is this is a completely different student records system? Can I just have some history of the student records system. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I don't have that level of detail. But let me start with the deputy minister and someone at this table might.
Thank you. Deputy minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just actually going to request that Mr. Wind answer that question. He has some detail on that project. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Wind.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It is, in fact, the same project. We did have some procurement issues which resulted in the need to reestablish that project and reestablish the appropriation for it.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you. Is anyone able to tell me any numbers about this? I know we don't do that but, you know, how much were we initially planning to spend years ago and then have we spent any money to date here in our failed procurement attempts? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think, Madam Chair, my understanding at this point is that we are in year one of a threeyear project and so the costs will begin to be incurred in the upcoming fiscal year. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, and I guess I'm wondering if you know, this is one of those areas where I also find a hard time for any of us to provide any accountability. You know, we spend millions on licensing and software and trying to procure these things, there's often problems. I understand that is the case across all governments. I don't really know anything about IT but I'm wondering if well, I guess I'll start with a question.
I heard Infrastructure is planning a dashboard to kind of update projects as they go along and perhaps release some sort of fiveyear capital plan, and I believe almost every jurisdiction does. Would software be included in that dashboard, or is that simply Infrastructure's capital? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not privy to Infrastructure's plans for their dashboards for their projects but I can certainly take away the prospect of a dashboard for all of the IT projects that sit under Finance. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, thank you. And I think perhaps, you know, some sort of I mean, it's somewhat ironic to me that how little information publicly available with the Office of the Chief Information Officer. You know, we rolled ISSS into, you know, one department, and there's millions of dollars there. I'm wondering if the Minister could take back the idea of perhaps you know, I don't even know how many software licences we have presently, how much they presently cost, when they are up for renewal. But I expect that if you looked at the replacement costs and the licensing costs, it's tens of millions of dollars. I don't know exactly the divide of when the chief information officer has it versus department because I know Health is also spending millions of dollars in health software, but I believe they do that on their own. But I'm just wondering if somewhere all of that information could be compiled and then some day, hopefully, someone could perhaps try and track some of the issues that have happened with software procurement. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I certainly like the idea of a tracking mechanism. There may be some challenges to determine the cutoff points. And what I mean by that is at what size of or scope of software or materials do we begin to put on the tracker versus not. But perhaps I'll just ask if Mr. Wind could just speak a bit to the nature of some of the assets that we do have, what is tracked; again, there's probably room to improve that. I appreciate the suggestion. As I say, I do certainly want to spend a bit more time on it but at least we can get a sense of what we do now. Again, I suggest it go to Mr. Wind, please.
Thank you. Mr. Wind.
Thank you, Madam Chair. IT capital assets are intended to be tracked in their life cycle and amortization through our tangible capital asset system within the Government of the Northwest Territories. Much of the software licensing cost is not a onetime cost. It's an ongoing O and M cost to maintain those licenses, and so that cost and those expenditures are distributed across the organization based on the department or the area that's expending the dollars. We are undertaking some work to improve and consolidate fiscal transparency out of the OCIO across the INT sector. It's early days at this stage, and it's really intended primarily to help with our governance through our deputy minister committee and to make sure that we're spending both O and M and capital dollars on the initiatives and priorities that are most important. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I asked this during yeah, and that would also kind of allude to my point of I could go to every single department and try and find in their operations some sort of licensing contract. I mean, actually I couldn't do that and it wouldn't become publicly available. But I think I would easily get to tens of millions of dollars quite quickly in licensing fees every year, let alone the actual initial capital ask that gets made here.
But I wanted to ask one last question, which was, that Infrastructure is spending an undisclosed amount of millions of dollars on replacing all its capital servers. I know the federal government has switched to a cloud first computing model. I recognize that some servers for some information may be needed, but the reason governments are looking at doing that is it's quite cheaper. I'm wondering if that is something the Office of the Chief Information Officer has looked at, is some sort of cloud server system. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
I'll turn that over to the chief information officer, please.
Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, we are looking at cloud as a component of our infrastructure and when we're delivering information systems and technology. It's not a blanket solution for everything, and it doesn't always save costs. What it often does is transfer capital onetime capital expenditures into ongoing O and M. So it's a complex kind of fiscal model and analysis that we do when we're looking at them. But, for example, our new service platform is a cloudbased platform and is resident in the cloud. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Are there any further questions, comments, under the Office of the Chief Information Officer?
All right, seeing none. Finance, Office of the Chief Information Officer, infrastructure investments, $3,380,000. Does committee agree? Thank you.
Agreed.
Committee, please turn to page 35 for Management Board Secretariat, with information items on page 36, Finance Management Board Secretariat, infrastructure investments, $12,738,000. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this item deals with the extension of the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Link from the Inuvik to Tuk Highway. And given the conversations that we've had during the length of this Assembly in regards to broadband internet and its farreaching impact on Northerners from, you know, the border right up to the Arctic Ocean and back again, I'm wondering where there is no money showing under the P3s or additional projects mentioned here. And I mean, this has a huge impact on education when we're talking about northern distance learning or when we're talking about the community learning centres in our small NWT communities. It has been an impact on public health and people's ability to access information as we saw during the height of the pandemic where, you know, information was changing minute to minute. And even, you know, daily or monthly activities like somebody being able to request a new healthcare card or update their vehicle registration. A lot of these things happen online now. And without people having access to broadband internet, it's just not possible for them to really access these government services. So I'm wondering if the Minister can speak to why we're not seeing more capital investment in broadband internet here. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, so the Member is correct that this is the portion remaining for the Mackenzie Valley fibre line to take it all the way up to Tuktoyaktuk. But the next major phase of bringing all communities up to a standard of having available to them of 50/10 service standard, right now the CRTC which, somewhat uniquely in Canada, regulates the provider here in the Northwest Territories has set it up such that Northwestel, by virtue of that regulatory arrangement, is undertaking the work to bring all communities up to a service standard of 50/10. I believe that 2025 is the year by which all communities will be at that standard, if not sooner. But I'll leave it as an overpromise if that need be. There is also the project to Whati that the GNWT was involved early stages in assisting to get that moving, but it is a Tlicho government project.
And so with that, Madam Chair, there's not an area where there has been an identified need that falls within the GNWT's area of responsibility or exclusive responsibility to invest additional capital expenses. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. So just so that I can make sure I'm on the same page as the Minister, so the work to update all communities to be on the 50/10 is work being done by Northwestel with 100 percent funding dollars then not from the GNWT, is that correct? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. That is correct.
Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the other piece, then, that I'm going to inquire specifically about is internet redundancy within Yellowknife. This is something we've heard quite a bit about from the Chamber of Commerce here in Yellowknife throughout the length of our term, and I'm wondering if the Minister can speak to this project here as well. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I certainly am live to the redundancy. It's redundancy that matters, if I may, not only for Yellowknife but would bring potentially redundancy to South Slave communities and would certainly assist in protecting all of the government's infrastructure which impacts, of course, all of the Northwest Territories in a territorial or regional sense. So just to underscore that I'm certainly alive to it, and in the communications that the GNWT and Department of Finance is responsible for in responding to CRTC, who are supposed to be undertaking a review of services in the North, we certainly took a, I think, very strong position that they need to be looking at how to fund redundancy projects and to, frankly, fund redundancy projects. We've taken that position before under the Universal Broadband Fund and were not successful. I am hoping that with the CRTC's process underway right now that it will not fall on deaf ears, that redundancy here is more than just better service; it really is providing an essential level of service given that we are otherwise on really one fibre line and satellitereliant.
So again, while it was good news in my first response that we're going to be at a 50/10, I'm all of that does get tempered with the fact that we are reliant on services that are either one line or on a satellite. So that is where that one is at, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Madam Chair. The other piece that I don't see in here that I know has been something that we've spoken about during all of the main estimates during every year of this Assembly, and it relates to public safety but ultimately comes down to the Department of Finance, is the expansion of cell service across the territory. And I believe that we have even heard from one of our fellow Members here, had a Member's statement, in relation to this over the course of this sitting. And I mean, there are different regions in the territory where when you're on the highway, you are an hour plus away from being able to gain cell service again and call for help if you need it and so I'm wondering why this piece is again not on or found, sorry, in the capital acquisition plan. Thank you
Thank you Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, earlier today I began to sort of go over some of the information that is available through the Government of Canada. They had put out maps that show cellular coverage across highways across all of Canada, back in 2018. So there may have been some improvements but certainly not dramatic ones, that there's over 1,200 kilometres of highways that have no cellular coverage; 115,000 kilometres of roads in Canada that have no cellular coverage which, you know, that's not a good news story by any way and by any means, but just to say that it's not a problem that the Government of the Northwest Territories can solve alone. The federal government has been called on to support that, and the Universal Broadband Fund was available for that but that's, you know, a fund that had a defined scope and a defined budget to a certain degree. It's not going to solve all of these hundreds of thousands of kilometres of roads with no coverage, including ours. It would still be looking at what then the costs would be to the government.
For example, as I was discussing earlier today an estimate came back for just the stretch of road between here and the community of Behchoko, just that one hour's worth of driving would be upwards of $500,000 a year in O and M costs. So, Madam Chair, if this is going to be a priority of this Assembly, then that will have to be visited perhaps coming into the next Assembly because it certainly was not one of the priorities that we were mandated to and, as such, did not get priority funding under the capital plan. Thank you
