Thank you, Madam Chair. That was funding that was appropriated for the purpose of the Hay River harbour restoration. Thank you.
Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So I understand that that is a very important project. How many years does the Minister expect that we will need to be expending this level of funds to complete the restoration? And is it best housed under division management? Like, if this is a long term longer term project, is this where it will continue to be found or will it be managed in some different way? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this phase of the project is expected to be completed in September of this year. There may be future phases. This is something where, for quite a long period of time when the federal government stopped providing this service, nothing was done, and it put us into the situation we found ourselves in. So, as I say, there will be some continuation of the work going forward but this particular phase will end in September. Thank you.
Member from Yellowknife North. Thank you.
That's fine. Thank you, Madam Chair.
No further questions, please turn sorry, Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, can the Minister please speak to and I'll let them open up their business plan, I've got page 183. Can the Minister please speak to whether or not the new highway conditions map and recording system Drive NWT, which is an initiative spoken to in the business plan, will that piece be included in the NWT Alert mapping program? Is there any desire to see that come together under one piece under the NWT Alert? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, that's an excellent idea, not one that I can say I can speak to whether or not right now. Actually, well right at this moment that was not the scope of the work but let me take that one away. That may be an opportunity to see that we do, in fact, combine those systems. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. And thank you to the Minister for that. I think my questions with the Minister of MACA previously in this session is really just pointing to trying to align, wherever we can, services that are in a onestopshop sort of style for the public to understand when there are issues, and that includes obviously egress from various places in evacuations. So thank you, Madam Chair. More of a comment. Thank you.
Thank you. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Just quickly, I wanted to note that there actually is already a meeting set up with MACA to have exactly this conversation. But I appreciate it being brought up, and I appreciate the Member's comment. Thank you.
Any further comments? Thank you, Minister. Any further comments? No further questions, please turn to page 264.
Infrastructure, asset management, operations expenditure summary, 20242025 Main Estimates, $24,275,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to corporate management, beginning on page 267 with information on page 269. Are there any questions? Page 267 with information items on page 269. Are there any questions? No further questions, please turn to page 268.
Infrastructure, corporate management, operations expenditure summary, 20242025 Main Estimates, $8,614,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to energy and strategic initiatives, beginning on page 270 with information items on page 272 to 275. Are there any questions? Member for Range Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. The community access programs, there's nothing in this budget for this program. It's really effective way of getting money into small communities and creating local economic activity. The Standing Committee on Accountability and Oversight has called for this money to be restored. Will the Minister restore this program? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there have been some challenges in terms of the funding in this program in terms of, for example, whether or not the programs that have been funded or the projects that have been funded are the right scope in size or whether they're perhaps not delivering as we all would hope them to. So at the very least, this is likely a situation where there would need to be a review of the program done and some supports put in to ensure the money would be spent properly. Now, as to whether it goes back in or not, that will be a question, I think, for the finance Minister to speak to when we are ready to move the entire budget out of COW. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So that's a yes, then? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Range Lake. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I wouldn't want to steal the Minister of Finance's thunder and, in general, it's not been our practice to have that kind of a budget discussion or negotiation on the floor of COW, so I am going to refrain from taking any position on that further at this time. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Member for Range Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It still sounds like a yes to me. But that's all right, we'll have that discussion later.
This also contains the energy programs for sorry, yeah, the energy programs that are funded. Can the Minister speak to the overall energy strategy and where the how the GNWT is moving ahead with its energy plans, especially in the advent of mine closure? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Range Lake. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I am happy to do this although I'm conscious that we are trying to be a bit more mindful of our time. The energy strategy is up for a renewal, and last summer some significant progress was made in terms of having, for example, a large forum of engagement and significant other opportunities for engagement over the summer of last year obviously with some challenges. There's work being done right now to draft up what that might look like. I know Members of the Assembly have had a significant amount of interest in this particular area. I think we are expecting to be ready to go on this roughly in 20252026 well, certainly the fiscal year of 20252026. But, again, I expect that there's a lot of interest. I expect we'll be coming back to committee before anything is finalized.
I mean, in broad terms, the energy situation in the Northwest Territories is one where we have over 20 disconnected micro grids. We are heavily reliant on diesel still, certainly for all redundancy. We have some hydro communities. We have independent hydro grids. So this is a space where there is an opportunity for much. An opportunity lots of opportunity, let's put it that way. But without taking some pretty significant actions, we would be in a difficult situation going forward. We'll be in the same situation in the next 25 years as we have been for the last 25 if we don't make some significant changes. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Member for Range Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Will the Northwest Territories be in the be netzero by 2050 and meet the Canadian netzero goal or targets? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Range Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, that's exactly the kind of question that does need to be answered in this strategy, and it is one that I hope there's a lot of significant public interest in. I appreciate that there's political interest in it. Because that will be if we decide to move the needle on what the goals are and make them bigger and bolder, it means significant investment in energy infrastructure to achieve them, and it means being on top of new technologies and emerging technologies. So, for example, this afternoon speaking about renewable diesel but up to and including what storage capacity for LNG might be like including what kinds of new capacity there may be. I think, Madam Chair, in your own community, they're doing some work to see whether or not there could be kinetic storage energy. We have to be at the front of the technology. We have to acknowledge that that technology comes with costs. It's probably going to cost more over the course of my children's lifetime if we don't do anything, but where do we go next? Again, that's exactly the kind of question that has to be in this strategy. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister. Member for Range Lake.
Thank you. The community government retrofit program is being discontinued. Can the Minister explain why? Thank you.
Minister of Infrastructure.
Madam Chair, let me put that to the deputy minister, please.
Deputy minister Loutitt.
Sorry, Madam Chair, we misheard you. It's the community government retrofit program. So at this time, Madam Chair, there is actually now federal funding that is available to support the funding of that program. So previously, it would have been Government of the Northwest Territories dollars that were being utilized to help support that. There are now federal funds that have been announced. So even at the same time, while some of the other funds we've relied on from the federal government in this space have been right now we're waiting to see whether they will come through or not, this is one where there's been some change. So I'd be happy to provide the information and link so that community governments who may be interested can begin to access that. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Member for Range Lake.
Yes, thank you. I would encourage the Minister to do that. The association of communities is quite keen to see this funding, or something like it, restored and provided to them and is concerned about this cut. So if it is being offset by other sources, best to communicate that to them without delay.
So the issue seems to be with the low carbon leadership economy fund. That's what's been in the headlines at least, and what's been communicated to us. The other smaller cuts, electric bicycle rebates, electric on the land vehicle rebates, electric vehicles fast charger corridor, electric vehicles rebate program, and youth energy mentorship, and energy auditing capacity, why are these funds being cut? Or are they being sunset? Can the Minister explain if it's related to those low carbon leadership issues or is this another source of funding we're losing? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Range Lake. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. So there are a significant amount of sunsets that are taking place, and that is where the cuts are coming from.
There has been some funding, $433,000 in funding, for new initiatives. So it just reduces the scope of what can what is possible under the Energy Action Plan right now. Obviously subject to perhaps seeing a renewal, hopefully seeing a renewal of the low carbon or the LCELF funding that the Member was mentioning but, yeah, thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Member for Range Lake.
Does the Minister believe that we have sufficient resources behind EV charging stations and associated infrastructure to support the transition away from fossil fuel powered from combustion engines or standard combustion engines? We're making this transition nationally, globally. Is the Northwest Territories in a position to keep pace, or will we be left behind and have no cars to drive? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Range Lake. Minister of Infrastructure.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, given the uptake to date on EV vehicles, we do believe that we are in a position to have sufficient amount of charging stations. So there's charging stations in and I'll double check the year here; I'm sure someone's going to send it to me as I say this. But there will be sufficient charging stations to create a corridor from here to the border. And so, again, in terms of ruling out that by in 2024, a fiscal year of 2024. So with that, that provides that ability for hopefully more people to then begin to buy the vehicles, EV vehicles, since that does appear to have been a barrier to this time. As more people will buy it, it certainly helps to support the idea of a further investment in those charging stations. So, again, we hope we're going to get to a place where the corridor, as I said, will go as far as the border. You know, for anyone that's going to ask the next question, we're going to have to burn diesel to have a charging station but if that ultimately gets more vehicles off the road, then the net benefit is greater and, again, as I say, as we move forward with this, if there's greater uptake of the EV vehicles because of those charging stations has continues to have greater benefits and to put us on that path of being not in a situation of not having cars. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Member for Range Lake.
