Thank you, Member for Tu NedheWiilideh. Are there any other general comments? Member for Yellowknife North.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. I've long had issues with the formatting of the way we present the capital estimates, largely because it's an accounting document, but I you know, I think you could go to any single municipality and see how they do their capital planning. They essentially have a get chart that shows you what year a project will start, what year it will finish, the total cost of that project, and you can kind of look through time what's planned weekly. We do not provide the total costs of projects in our capital estimates. We believe that that it will affect procurement. I don't buy that argument. And we seem quite bad at getting fair value for dollar on a lot of our contracts and committing them on time. You know, I could go through, as I've done in years past, almost every single project and ask the same three questions: How much is this total project going to cost? How much federal money did we get from it? How is it being tendered? You know, basic questions. But I really don't think I should have to answer those questions. I think that that should be presented with the capital estimates.
I've been promised for years now some sort of dashboard. I don't quite know what's going to be in the dashboard but I'm told that it will track projects as they progress and hopefully will track overages and change orders and delays and perhaps even some reasoning. But I remain cautiously optimistic that one day we will have a dashboard.
I guess to reiterate what I said in my statement today, really, I think the perfect example of this is the Taltson hydro expansion. The government is asking for an undisclosed amount. They won't tell us how much publicly they're asking for the Taltson hydro expansion in this document, and yet they won't tell us how much the project costs. I just can't understand any reason I can't have a general estimate of what that project costs. Is it a billion? Is it $2 billion? That is all I want to know so I can have a coherent conversation about it.
Absence some like, this is our last kick at the can but I just can't see myself supporting these capital estimates absent some progress being made on either that dashboard, on the costs of projects, on getting a copy of that Taltson business case, on just any sort of recognition that the way we are doing this is lacking in transparency. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Are there any further questions? Member for Thebacha.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I look at the capital budget, and I'm very happy with what's in there. I think there are some areas that are you know, we're always talking about green energy, and we're going to go ahead with the planning of the expansion of the Taltson. There are some issues that I will put in a statement next week. But, you know, overall and the territorial fire centre is more important now than ever. And I'm very happy that it's in this capital budget. I think that, you know, looking at that old building that's over 50 years old and all the plugins that we saw and now they're trying to save the data that has been accumulated through the years, I'm very happy with this capital budget. And, you know, we're always talking about and I hear my colleagues, everybody was interested in the Taltson today. Not on a really positive note. It should be a positive thing when you're going to green energy, especially with climate change. I've learned a lot about climate change even though I'm very probusiness in this Assembly because I was never really interested in that area before because never had to. I was able to make a decision the day that I decided I wanted to make a decision the last 14 years before I came here four years ago. This was a learning experience for me, this last these four years, but it was a positive experience. I've learned from each of my colleagues in a different way, and I appreciate the budget that's before us. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Are there any further general comments? Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, you know, I went through the budget and, you know, what's in there is in there, I guess. Well, we're never all going to be happy with what's in there but, you know, we've got a little bit for all our communities and for, you know, highway work and that type of thing. But I guess what I would just like to state, I guess, is that, you know, we are going into election, you know, government's going to kind of slow down here a bit. Contractors, some of them have been, you know, impacted by the fires as well so they've been out of work, some of them for for, you know, several weeks, and they're going to be looking for something to sustain them, you know, while we do this transition. So I would just like to send the message to the other side is that make sure that we get, you know, the work continues, we get work we get contracts out there and so that we can make sure that our small, medium, and largesized businesses continue to work. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. I do have a few questions if I can, and then a few comments. I'd like to know how much of this is carryovers from the previous fiscal year? Thank you.
We're just doing general comments right now. If you want to save your questions for the okay, sorry, I stopped your time.
Thanks, Madam Chair, for stopping the time on me. Okay, well, I'll offer a few comments, then.
So I guess I want to start with page 2, the introduction and, you know, I continue to point out that the biggest part of our capital budget is highways and roads at 26 percent. Housing is 4 percent. When our government continues to spend, you know, six times as much on highways and roads as we spend on housing and I understand that this is probably not doesn't include some federal money and so on, but this is money that we're spending, and when our government continues to spend six times as much on roads versus housing, there's something wrong, fundamentally wrong with the way that we do our budgeting and we allocate our resources, period. Look, roads are important. I get it. I had to drive out of here during the evacuation. But that's it, right there. Anybody wants to know what the priorities of this government are, look at page 2. We're spending way, way more than roads and highways than on housing. It says it all to me.
So when I get the Minister in front of us, we will find out that there's very significant carryovers from the previous years, although there's this $260 million cap on capital spending. It's actually a lot more than that. A lot of this is carryovers. We just cannot continually cannot get the money out the door. Doesn't matter what we do. We just cannot spend the money. And that leads to very significant overbudgeting again and again and again. I don't think I've actually voted in favour of a capital budget in the eight years I've been an MLA because of the significant overbudgeting on the capital side because then you have to build up a surplus to be able to spend money on capital, which you don't actually end up spending at the end of the day, which means you have to cut and scrimp and save money on the O and M side, programs and services that our people need. That's what it comes down to. That's what the overbudgeting on the capital ends up doing. It means we're not spending money on people on their basic human needs. And that's why I'll continue to oppose the capital budgets that this Cabinet brings forward.
The other thing that I'm particularly concerned about and I'll ask the Minister when we get her in front of us is the new fiscal situation. I listened to her very carefully. She delivered a fiscal update today in terms of, you know, the unexpected expenditures from fires and so on. I don't think there's been anything changed in this capital budget as a result of that. That's not a good place to be. We're going to run a deficit. The Premier said it. It's in the news. We're going to run a deficit because of these unexpected expenditures. But I don't sense that anything's changed. It's business as usual. That's just not good financial management. And we're leaving the next Assembly in a very difficult position because of this continued overbudgeting on the capital side.
I could say a bunch of things about some of these individual projects, and I'll probably save some of that for when we get to the line items, Madam Chair. But there's no way I can support this budget when we continue to spend way more on roads than we do on housing. Wrong priorities. And I just disagree with Cabinet fundamentally on this since day one. Thank you very much.
Thank you, Member. Member for Monfwi.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I see here as capital estimates, it would be nice that, you know to see Tlicho region in this as well because there's North Slave region at 22 percent. I would like to know how much money is going to be spent in Tlicho region. It doesn't have anything like that here. I see the roads. It's $94 million. And I'm grateful, thankful that, you know, Frank Channel Bridge is on there. But Frank Channel Bridge is a benefit for the Northwest Territories.
And I'm kind of a little bit disappointed because for the school, it says $3 million. Like, we have a lot of schools in the Northwest Territories that needs upgrade. Some of our schools are over 50 years old. Even the Sahtu. In Tlicho, you know, like, that's what we keep saying that we need a new school. And I know there is a study, and the Minister has said that before because it is in the they're doing their own little studies. And, like, it's I know it's going to get you know, it's we're going to get our new school eventually, I know that. But it's just that why $3 million? I mean, that's, like and for a few upgrades. And a lot of school needs some minor and major repair. And this budget is disappointing. Yes, we do have we have a housing crisis. We have a lot of homeless people. And more should have been given over there because even in my region, we have a lot of people on the waitlist for family units, and we don't have that. And we have we have a warming shelter. We have a lot of homeless people. And if some of those people cannot be accommodated in Tlicho region, what do they do? They come to Yellowknife and they become Yellowknife problems, and we don't want that. We would like to take care of our own people back home, but we don't have a lot of housing. We do have housing issues. We have housing crisis. A lot of social problems. A lot of addiction issues, mental health. And we do need more of those programs and services, and it's not reflected in this budget. There's not much.
And we have a lot of aging infrastructure too as well. We have over 50yearold water pipe system in Edzo that needs a major repair, that needs to be replaced. We have a lot of school that needs, you know, replacement or a lot of school repair. And also a lot of our government building needs to be replaced as well. And it's disappointing to see this budget the way that it is it is written, and with the North Slave region, 22 percent. I would like to see Tlicho region in there so that way we will have a good estimate of how much money is going being spent in Tlicho region because there's four communities that I represent, and there is over 2,000 people that I do represent as well. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to sort of expand a bit on some things that my colleagues have talked about. Yes, there is a massive amount of money in here for infrastructure which does includes roads, but as my colleague from Monfwi pointed out, a big part of that is the Frank Channel Bridge. Another piece of that is also the Great Bear River Bridge planning study and as well a lot of there's at least five highway reconstruction projects. And I think it's worth noting that for the first time in a while under ICIP, I believe we are seeing 100 percent dollars for this funding. So while the amount of money that looks like it's being spent is disproportionate on highways and roads, it is actually, in fact, largely funded 100 percent through the federal government, or at least 75 percent. So that's a bunch of money that comes in that basically keeps our main industry or business industry alive, which is our construction industry.
So to me, the $94 million on highways and roads actually shows an increase in investment from the federal government into our infrastructure deficit. And I'm really pleased to see the 100 percent dollars, which was always something that I've said from day one that we needed to be pushing the federal government on because we can't afford to pay the way a province does. We don't have the same revenue sources. So when I look at that, I'm quite pleased. And the same when I look at airports and runways. Yes, it looks like a really large number, $62 million, but Madam Chair, you know from that in your own region, a large portion of that is the Inuvik highway sorry, the Inuvik runway expansion and the terminal buildings, which is 100 percent funded by the Department of National Defence.
So while these numbers look like they're very heavily weighted over towards more of the roads and industrial type work, it's not a full picture to say that like, to sort of express that as being GNWT money and GNWT investment when clearly it is more about the federal government than it is about us. And often, as we noted numerous times in this House, we cannot afford we are not allowed to move money from certain pots of funding from the federal government to other pots. So this is not a questioning of housing versus roads. They come from two different sources in the federal government.
So I am disappointed though, however, to see that the housing is only at $13 million. I struggle after four years to understand where the houses have actually shown up for all this money that the Minister speaks to getting. I see stuff in communities that when I speak to the communities when we were on committee tour, they told me they worked with the federal government directly, they got those houses. So I'm not quite sure what housing has been doing. And I hope $13 million here actually means $13 million in units on the ground and not $13 million that half is sloughed off to administrative costs and bureaucracy. This department needs to get under control the fact that they are a social programming department and stop, you know, middle managing and not getting their money out the door properly.
So I think with that being said, I just also wanted to echo the disappointed in seeing the dismally low number for the schools. We did tours for we went on tour for the Education Act or with committee and as an engineer I'm not a building engineer so I'm not going to profess to have that expertise, but I know when I can go in and look at a school and see that the entire floor of the school is being jacked up and held up by plywood on the ground and jacks to hold it in place to keep the building from falling down, the buildings all smell. As a Minister, I went into Aklavik school on a tour with Cabinet, and I could smell mildew in the gym, and that's their hall. That's what they use for every single event that's ever held in Aklavik is in that school. So what is that doing to our health care and to the people's health in those regions?
This government has not been serious or taken really to heart the mandate item to actually improve the educational outcomes of students to the rest of Canada because how could they even begin if they're in schools that are making them sick and are not full of the equipment and the things that they need to learn. And that's when you consider students that are probably starting at an equal footing, and then we have students that aren't even coming from an equal footing with southern Canada. So I have to say that this is actual quite shameful, that it's only $3 million for schools considering that I sat here now and listened to my colleagues from Nunakput and Monfwi talk about the schools that are lacking and then yet I was had been invited to the opening ceremony of the beautiful new school here in Yellowknife. So the school that was here in Yellowknife that it replaced would have stayed in a community for another 40 years like that, just being shored up and fixed up, but because it was Yellowknife it was replaced. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Are there any Members who haven't spoken to general comments? Seeing none, we'll proceed to the details tabled in the document. Does the Minister wish to bring witnesses into the Chamber?
Yes, please, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Sergeantatarms, please escort the witness into the Chamber.
Minister, would you introduce your witnesses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, with me, I have the deputy minister of finance, Bill MacKay. And I have Kristal Melanson, director for the management board secretariat.
Welcome. Does committee agree to proceed to the detail contained in the tabled document?
Agreed.
Committee, the Legislative Assembly begins on page 14. We'll defer the Legislative Assembly totals and review the estimates by activity summary beginning at page 15 with Office of the Clerk with information items on page 16. Are there any questions?
Legislative Assembly, Office of the Clerk, infrastructure investments, $105,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Members, please turn now to the Legislative Assembly found on page 14. Legislative Assembly, 20242025 Capital Estimates. $105,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Does committee agree that consideration of the Legislative Assembly is now complete?
Agreed.
Thank you. Committee, we will now consider the Department of Education, Culture and Employment which begins on page 17. We will defer the departmental totals, review the estimates by activity summary beginning at page 18 with culture, heritage, and languages with information items on page 19.
Department of Education, Culture and Employment, culture, heritage and languages, infrastructure investments, $490,000. Does committee agree? Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks, Madam Chair. So I see there's two items here, the Hay River library sidewalk. I've been to the library. It's a nice one. I'm glad to hear they're going to fix the sidewalk; that's great. I guess the Minister probably knows that I love the archives. It's been I actually go over there and spend time. So what's the money here for the archives? What's that all about? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the facilities that are currently being used to house all of the territorial archives are not at national standards. This is meant to be, at this point, just a temporary stop gap measure in advance of a full standalone archives being a project that can be contemplated. But at this point, we do need to protect those cultural materials. So this is meant to be that work to get that process underway. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Okay, thanks. Yeah, fully in agreement. I've been pushing and trying to hope for the last eight years that something would be done because the archives is overflowing. I've been for at least a couple of tours there. The stuff is not in any kind of climate-controlled facility. Is this for the archives building itself, or is this the offsite storage? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I do believe this does take into account the offsite materials which are noted to not be currently and as already noted not in an environmentally controlled state. So this is, again, to, I believe, take all of that into account and support that. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, thanks. Yeah, so the offsite storage, for anybody who's listening, is actually the government warehouse over on Byrne Road, has no climate control whatsoever. The records that are there, as I understand it actually, you know, they take in a significant part of the history of this government moving to Yellowknife, all of the work that's been done on devolution, negotiations of agreements, really important records. They're sitting over in a government warehouse without any temperature control. That's just not a good idea. I doubt that we're actually in basic legal compliance with the Archives Act. And that's going to be the subject of a statement and questions coming up, Madam Chair. But, you know, what's the longterm plan here? I've seen so many plans for actually building a proper archives building, and it all comes down to we're not going to do it because it costs too much money. So what's the longterm plan here other than spending, I don't know, a couple hundred thousand dollars or whatever it is to try to fix up a really bad situation in the first place. What's the longterm plan or vision here? Thanks, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Well, that is not part of the current capital plan that's in front of committee. At this point, these are meant to ensure that we are, of course, protecting what are critical cultural assets. But, Madam Chair, at this point, it would be whether where it would fall in a future capital plan. There certainly is the five and 20year plans that do exist. They are ranked based on, you know, considerations you know, the preservation of life and safety of individuals and people first, for example, and then a ranking list thereafter. So I also am certainly sympathetic and live to the importance of safeguarding our cultural heritage. But, yeah, at this point, we're going to be looking most likely for whether or not some federal funding can help support the project, and then at that point it may well see itself advanced. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Thanks. And, look, I know I'm not even probably asking the right Minister here. So I'll just leave it at that. But I've waited eight years for something to happen. It hasn't happened. And I'm really worried. And I don't think we're in basic compliance with the law as a government. So I'm going to leave it at that but I'm going to raise this in a statement, and I'll have questions for the appropriate Minister probably next week because we're just not living up to our own laws. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Department of Education, Culture and Employment, culture, heritage, and language, infrastructure investments $490,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. We can go next to page 20. Junior kindergarten to grade 12 school services with information items on page 21. Department of Education, Culture and Employment, junior kindergarten to grade 12 school services, infrastructure investments, $3,100,000. Does committee agree? Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. As I mentioned in my opening comments there, you know, I'm really concerned about the lack of money that we're putting in towards the schools, and I understand that this isn't this Minister's realm to know. But, you know, $3 million is very small and it really is the only school that's actually getting sort of any construction, so to say, is Mangilaluk in Tuk. But we have many schools that are in needs of almost full replacements. Does the Minister have any idea if we are going to be seeing any federal funds come in to take care of our school infrastructure deficit. And one of the things that was really concerning that I have learned in my role in social development is that we fund even the school infrastructure per capita.
So there's no taking into account the fact of, you know, the remoteness of a community or the inability to build there or the lack of an allweather road for supplies to come in or for even maintenance to be done on an existing school. So, you know, I think it's really at a state where the crumbling infrastructure, you know, the federal government needs to step up, I think, and really you know, what a great act of reconciliation that would be after all these years of taking children to school, why don't you go you know, the federal government come in and build proper schools for us in the North. So not I know the Minister doesn't have a crystal ball, but if she has any idea of whether or not we're going to see a significant school investment soon, I would like to know. Thanks.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.
Madam Chair, I don't need a crystal ball on this one. I can tell you the answer and that the federal government doesn't typically provide funding for schools. But what I would like is it would be more of a magic wand where they would, in fact, provide the funding for schools for the reasons that the Member has set out as well as any other reason that that would, you know if we can invest with children starting from early education, junior kindergarten through two, you know, there would I think a lot of the other problems that we see across the territory or elsewhere in Canada might well be solved. So I don't think any of us disagree, but right now the federal government does provide significant funds for things like roads and other sort of the traditional, if you will, infrastructure, and we are making use of it because those are areas where we are also at a tremendous deficit as compared to the rest of Canada. And in the meanwhile, we have to try to race to catch up with the limited funding available to us as a territorial government in order to fill all of the rest of the gaps, like schools. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess I don't want to let it go because I just find it to be such a frustrating topic. You know, I want to ask the Minister, well, then what is the plan to accommodate in the meantime as students can no longer stay in these conditions of these schools. Like, you know, as someone was saying, you know, the paint, the lead paint in the gymnasium and then, of course, someone's friend, you know, popped online to say well, that's not a problem; it's at these limits. Well, yeah, that's when it's on the wall and it's not being, you know, flaked off and degraded and inhaled by people. So, you know, there's a lot of reasons for and excuses made for why these schools can be sort of slipped you know, taped up and BandAided back together, but at the end of the day we are paying for it. We're paying for it in the health of our students. We're paying for it in the truancy rates. We're paying for in the lack of education. We're paying for it in the unemployable people that don't have the skills. We're paying for it in upgrading for two years afterwards just to get the grade 12 education the rest of Canada gets. And I'm you know, I know that's not this Minister's portfolio, but I guess just more of a comment. I am extremely frustrated to see this amount. And, again, it's just failing our children. Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Member for Kam Lake oh.
