Agreed.
Supplementary estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 20232024, Department of Education, Culture and Employment, operations expenditures, labour development and advanced education, not previously authorized, $2,570,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 20232024, Department of Education, Culture and Employment operations expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, $3,229,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Please turn to page 6. Supplementary estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 20232024, Department of Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, long term and continuing care services, not previously authorized, $2,555,000. Does committee agree? Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I would be remiss to let $2.5 million go by and not ask a question. So can the Minister tell me does she know when this work will be complete? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me see if the deputy minister has that quickly available, please.
Thank you. Deputy minister MacKay.
Sorry, Madam Chair. I might have to turn this over to Mr. Courtoreille. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. Courtoreille.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So this is contribution funding from the Department of Health and Social Services to Avens. And Avens uses this funding - they're overseeing the construction of this project currently. My understanding is that the funding is for the - or the funding is for 20232024, and this part of the project will be completed in the next fiscal year. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I was over at Avens recently and, boy, there's a lot of stuff happening over there. I'm just wondering is there - what are the reasons for the delay? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there was some delay obviously - well, I shouldn't say obviously. There was some delay early on in the project due to problems not dissimilar to others we've seen across Canada around supply chains. However, Madam Chair, there certainly is, as I've said before, there is a project money here now for $2.555 million expected to continue this project moving forward. There is quite a lot that's happening at the site right now.
It is moving forward at this point. I don't expect - you know, all I can say is what's here, is that we are asking for the carryover. Carryovers get approved or get at least advanced to the Legislative Assembly when they are in process already, when there's already contracts in place. So I understand the project's already 40 percent complete. That it needs to be at that stage in order to have been requested for carry over. And that would have probably been sometime before we were - before we actually are appearing here, so before these materials were prepared. So I anticipate that by the end of this summer, we should be well over the 50 percent time mark. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks for that, but I really asked for reasons why the project's delayed. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Like I said at the beginning, not dissimilar to other projects right now, supply chain issues did delay the initial procurement of materials. But, again, that was an early delay and it is now underway. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, okay. I don't think I have anything further. Thanks.
Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 2023-2024, Department of Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, long term and continuing care services, not previously authorized, $2,555,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 20232024, Department of Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, $2,555,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Please turn to page 7. Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 20232024, Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, asset management, not previously authorized, $167,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 20232024, Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, $167,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Please turn now to page 8. Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 20232024, Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, operations expenditures, community operations, not previously authorized, $29,473,000. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. This is $29 million being carried over although we are holding approximately $66 million, and I believe there's actually quite a bit more through some other ICIP funding for municipalities. I believe all of this money has been allocated. It's project specific so a community worked with us to apply to the feds and we'll build X thing. But my understanding is, and we got - we weren't going to get all that money out so we asked the feds for an extension, they gave us an extension, but my understanding is that quite a bit of these allocated projects are now at the state where, due to inflation, are not going ahead in any world. But I guess that's my question. What confidence do we have that this $29 million here, or the total kind of flowthrough money we are holding, will actually get spent? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, again, that would involve going through project by project over 33 different communities. The GNWT is the flowthrough agent. So the federal government really just provides the money but we allocate it out without - you know, it's not up to us to decide for a community what project they want to advance or not. So there is a lot here that's being carried over, and I'd be happy to try to work in a new way if there is one but, really, this is money that is not ours to decide upon it. Really, just what we want to keep it available for communities but I can't speak to the level of certainty that any one community might be bringing to their project. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, thank you. I guess I want to clarify whether - when this $29 million is carried over, whether there's any review by the GNWT of the project or is it simply we didn't get it out the door to give it to the communities so it automatically gets carried over, or do they have to come to us and say hey, sorry, this is what's happening, can you please carry over our funding? Is there any sort of accountability or oversight by us on it or is it an automatic carryover once we don't send it to them? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this will be an automatic carryover, and the communities can continue to apply for the money for their projects and we'll hold it for them pending their completion of those projects. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I guess my concern is the way I understand this to work is the feds essentially gave us $66 million, they said, get your communities to apply and then you will help decide which ones go forward, not all of the projects communities wanted to do obviously made the first round of cuts and now there are some that, you know, inflation is causing some community needs to reapply or find other money or not go ahead so that money is not available for another community to kind of fill in the gap. That's my understanding of the current situation. So I guess the solution there would be for everyone to kind of get in the room again and say okay, we have this list of money we're holding, these tens of millions of dollars, what is actually being built, what's not being built, what needs to be reapplied to get some extra inflation. Is that some sort of - something that either MACA or finance could do?
Just I'm very concerned that we're going to keep automatically carrying over $30 million and then it's going to go 40, and then eventually we will - the feds will say, sorry, you already got one extension and you're not meeting - we're not giving you a second. So can we do a little audit or perhaps review and reach out on each of these projects to make sure they are 100 percent going forward? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this really was a communitydriven - these are communitydriven projects and initiatives. It's really not one that has a lot of oversight by the GNWT. That said, and just to defend, if I might, the communities as a whole, there certainly is money being spent. There are some projects that are being advanced, and the smaller project, often the more nuanced the reasons were of carry over.
It may well be in one community a very specific labour market issue and in another community inflation and in another community a supply chain. These are smaller projects, each with their own challenges. All that said, Madam Chair, I recognize the challenge here, and I don't - also don't like having the $30 million sitting and adding to the carryovers that are before the House overall as a total. So there is still is a fair bit of time. We have some additional time on this money from the federal government and can certainly make a commitment to take this away, between the Department of Finance as well as MACA, and see if there's something further we can do to assist. There may be some areas where there's some specific issues that we can support communities on, and there may simply be other projects where the communities need to take a hard look themselves and just need a bit of a push to do so. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I guess would we be able to get a list of the projects that are currently in the queue here? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I certainly do have a list of projects, and I'm only hesitant in that it's because this is - these are communitydriven projects, I want to confirm there's no reason that I'm holding it and can't share it. But if there's not, then I'm certainly happy to share that at the very least with committee. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. You know, it's obviously in everyone's interest to spend this tens of millions of dollars, I think. We've heard the feds say, you know, well we don't need to give you more community infrastructure money, you're not spending the money we gave you. And I've heard MACA say similarly well, we don't need to increase the community infrastructure budget, there's tens of millions of dollars not being spent. I think we all know if this was just unconditional money to spend on infrastructure, they'd get it done. But sometimes the ICIP project categories were rather specific and you kind of had to shoehorn projects in. And I know there's some frustration about that. So just a bit of a comment, I don't think - our communities need infrastructure money but when we put these strings attached to it and then we hold it as GNWT, it's clearly having a hard time getting out the door and there's a larger conversation to be had to get all the parties to the table and make sure this money is spent. So a comment. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Thebacha.
