Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. I want to thank my colleague from Yellowknife North for raising a number of concerns and issues, particularly around the Taltson project. But I guess I just want to go on record as well. This is the area of the capital budget that I have the most difficulty with, and folks in this House are not going to be surprised to hear me say that I think many of these projects are very dubious value. I don't think they're all it's not possible for them to all go ahead at the same time. I think it was a mistake to try to say to the public that we're going to get these three projects going at the same time, the three big ones in particular. And through the work that I've done here, when you actually see the contracts that are out for, certainly Taltson Expansion, the Slave Geological Province, the planning work mainly goes to southern companies. So I think the economic value of these is really quite dubious. And I would much rather see the money being and effort that's going into these projects put into housing. We need to start treating housing like it's a big infrastructure project. I have said that many, many times in this House, and it's just water off a duck's back.
Now, I do want to talk or ask some questions about the Slave Geological Province funding that's in here. I'd like to know how much of this is our own money for the next year. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Let me go to ADM Brennan. He'll know, I hope, of the exact numbers or the exact cost sharing ratio. Thank you.
Thank you. ADM Brennan
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. So the SGP is 75 percent feds, 25 percent GNWT. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Okay, thanks. I think I knew that but how much are we spending of our own money then in 20242025 on SGP work? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. We'll just get that number for the Member. So, well, looking at $9 million, that's the total that's being spent, Madam Chair. That's inclusive of the amount coming from the feds. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, okay, thanks. Yeah, so there is some of our own money going in here. This is one that's experienced very significant slippage. Quite frankly, I just don't think we should be doing it for a whole variety of other reasons; I might get into some of that. But at what point will this project be in by the end of 20242025; what's the status of the work going to be and what will we get out of the 2 or $3 million of our own money that we're putting into it? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The federal money that was secured was intended to support work up to the point of an environmental assessment. And anticipating where this may well go, there, of course, is the regional strategic environmental assessment that is now also underway. That is not falling under the same pot of funding but that to the extent that there is I wouldn't say slippage but perhaps a delay in the work, as that work also needed to get done and needed to be considered. But, again, the funding is provided for the purpose of being ready to put forward the environment or to complete the environmental assessment work. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Frame Lake.
Yeah, I think that's a big mistake, quite frankly, and I've said that before in this House, and I hope that future governments will listen to this as well. This government cannot have it both ways. You cannot trigger an EA for the Slave Geological Province or Lockhart allseason road while it's in a regional study. What's the point of doing a regional study? Tlicho government, others have asked for the regional study so that we don't make irrevocable mistakes so why trigger an EA while the regional study's going on? That would be just ridiculous and, quite frankly, contrary to good project management, good environmental management, sound public policy. And I've said this before in the House, if this government ends up triggering an EA while the regional study is on, that's really bad. I can't emphasize that enough. Why do the regional study? So, yeah, I just don't agree with this, quite frankly, and especially at a time where the caribou herds the Bathurst caribou herd has not recovered. There's no evidence whatsoever of recovery in the last four years I've been here; it's gotten worse. So I don't know why we would continue to push this when the caribou herd is in crisis while a regional study is going on. This is just bad public policy, bad spending. Benefits don't stay here. I just don't understand why we do this, Madam Chair. This is wrong.
Now, I do want to say a couple of other things, and I think I've also heard it said in this House, if there's one project on this list this government should pursue it's the Mackenzie Valley Highway. It actually connects communities. It's for the benefit of communities. This other stuff, a lot of this is not for the benefit of communities, some of this stuff. So if you're going to do the Mackenzie Valley Highway, the problem is this has been a project that is in environmental assessment now for ten years because we submitted it way too early before we even had money. So you're gobbling we've been gobbling up regulatory time. The Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review board, they almost cancelled the environmental assessment at one point because our government wouldn't submit necessary information. Why trigger an EA on something when you're not ready to do it? And that's what you're going to do with the Slave Geological Province application as well. You're going to trigger an EA before it's even ready and you're going to gobble up, waste taxpayers' money on it. It's going to turn into a boondoggle. And I think the same thing will happen with Taltson. I have no doubt if the current attitudes continue to prevail here.
So my advice is you concentrate on one project. That's what I've heard informally from the federal contacts that I have. Those guys, they just can't figure out what they want to do. They keep coming after us for all kinds of crazy things. If they had one project and they brought it to us with a real plan, we could probably work with that. This other stuff, crazy. Why do it? So that's my advice to the next Assembly, concentrate on one big infrastructure project and make it the Mackenzie Valley Highway and finish it. And do it in small enough chunks that communities will actually benefit from it. Don't try to do it all at the same time and gobble up ten years of an EA before a board and waste taxpayers' money. Get the money in place and do it right.
Thanks, Madam Chair. I think that's probably all I have to say. It sounds like a lecture and quite frankly it is because I'm fed up after eight years of sitting here wasting taxpayers' money on these boondoggle projects. Thank you.
Thank you. Are there any further comments or questions under energy and strategic initiatives? Seeing none.
Department of Infrastructure, energy and strategic initiatives, infrastructure investments, $45,150,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Next turn to page 61 for programs and services with information items on page 62 and 63.
Department of Infrastructure, programs and services, infrastructure investments, $72,334,000. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm just, sorry, trying to franticly scroll through my notes here. But I just wanted to talk a little bit about the Inuvik airport, the Mike Zubko air terminal building, the runway extension project, and the adaptation for climate change. It's my understanding that these projects have come in under sorry, I'm just looking, the trade corridor no, these are the DND. Can the Minister confirm that these are all being 100 percent funded by the federal government? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Let's go to ADM Brennan, please.
Mr. Brennan
Thank you, Madam Chair. So the DND runway extension is 100 percent federally funded. There is also a Disaster Mitigation Adaptation Fund project underway at the runway that's 75 percent funded. And the airport terminal building is currently 75 percent funded. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I recall a couple years back talking about this project, and there was a bit of back and forth around getting the project going. Can the Minister or the department please give me just a bit of an update on where things are at? Considering it's been very quiet from the people that I was hearing from before, I'm assuming things have been moving along well but if I could just get an idea of when are things progressing on time and on budget? Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Again, ADM Brennan has probably the latest numbers on that, please.
Thank you. ADM Brennan.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So for the runway project, things are progressing on time and on the adjusted budget. We recently signed the contract for, I think, about $82 million to continue the airports and all that work would take us up to completion of the runway except for electrical and paving. I think that will take us about another year and a half, I do believe.
In terms of the airport terminal building, so that project is currently under negotiations, so. The proponent did submit a bid. We're working through that bid right now, and that work continues. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thanks, Madam Chair. Can the Minister or department tell me how much of this money is staying with northern businesses? It is my understanding that the engineers on this project are not BIP'd or northern businesses. Can the Minister or department speak to that. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So I know we're just looking for I mean, there's the three different projects here. The lead, of course, was a joint venture between the two landowners of the region, that being IRC and GTC. So they would be the lead in terms of ensuring that their own beneficiaries would be benefitting in a maximum capacity. And I would have no sort of direct say in terms of saying to them who is or is not a beneficiary. Let me double check with ADM Brennan, though, if there's anyone else involved. Again, there may well be some particularly the technical supports, that would not we would not have the capacity for that here in the Northwest Territories, and so I just send it to him so see if I've missed any major players. Thank you.
Thank you. ADM Brennan.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. So I think the only thing I would add to what the Minister said was that our most recent report was that it was 80 percent local and NWT labour on that project. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to note, that is just the labour portion, not materials and supplies. And I see that the ADM is nodding his head, so it is not 80 percent of the total cost of the project for anybody listening.
I do want to come back to this comment the comment the Minister said that she has no direct say in the subcontractors used by the joint venture between the IRC and the GTC. This has come up before in other projects where, I believe, under NTPC where the GNWT sort of washes its hands of its fiscal responsibility under the Free Trade Acts, as well as under our own policies, to ensure that northern business is used and to ensure that it's going the right way.
Can the Minister speak to what controls or measures are in place to ensure that what is happening within those groups is actually benefitting the people that it's meant to? Because I'm sure you're aware, and I've heard it too, there are a lot of beneficiaries in the Beaufort Delta that are not getting a piece of any of this pie and that others are being brought in from outside and being deemed as northern and beneficiaries. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister.
Well, Madam Chair, I am quite happy to talk about vendor performance management. So one of the many things that has proceeded under and in response to the procurement review was a move for vendor performance management. I certainly don't want to suggest that the Government of the Northwest Territories doesn't play a role in managing its own contracts; however, up and to the time of the procurement review, there wasn't anything in the contracts to say that they would be monitored and then there was no mechanism by which to enforce, say, BIP policies that businesses were using to bid on contracts.
So with the introduction of BIP vendor performance management, initially a couple of years ago, which introduced the monitoring component and started to change our contracts so that contractors would know that they were being monitored. The last piece of the puzzle, if you will, was an app to create and establish enforcement mechanisms which would be up to and including the ability to hold back the holdback amounts if, in fact, companies were not meeting the obligations that they had purported to be meeting when they initially made their contracted bids. So I do certainly agree with that concern. Our BIP program and procurement in general will only be as strong as our ability to monitor it and enforce it. Those tools are now in place. It has taken some time. So I acknowledge that. But those tools are there now. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, you know, I have heard the Minister say this before but it's really disappointing that it took four years, or at least two, in order to have a couple line items put into the contractor's reporting regarding things like per diems, which I raised with her numerous times, and brought up in Cabinet when I first got in.
I ordered a procurement review to the Department of Infrastructure in the spring of 2020. We are now sitting at the fall of 2023, and a lot of the things that I directed them to do have not come forward and are taking four years to do.
In order to have a reporting sheet, which the federal government has been doing on this type of thing for decades now, it has taken this government four years to develop that. And I can tell them right now that their contractors still keeps the incidental piece of the per diems from their northern workers. So I don't have a lot of faith in this enforcement that's been going on or been put forward. It took way too long to come forward, and I don't think there's any teeth in it. When members or people can move to a community, rent a residential address, label that as their office address and become local to take away contracts from others in that region and therefore then be able to actually establish a business location in that town and I'm talking about your own town, Madam Chair, you know, they're very much gaming the system. So I really hope that the next Assembly takes this to heart because a lot of our money is going to the south and to people that have worked for this government before and are sitting with cozy pensions and are also still now taking money away from people here. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member. Did you have any further questions? Infrastructure, programs and services. Any further questions from Members? Seeing none.
Department of Infrastructure, programs and services, infrastructure investments, $72,334,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, Members. Please return now to the department summary found at page 55.
Department of Infrastructure, 20242025 Capital Estimates, $201,079,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Does committee agree that consideration of Department of Infrastructure is now complete?
Agreed.
Thank you. Committee, we will now consider the Department of Justice. Does the Minister wish to switch witnesses?
Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes, please.
