Thank you, Madam Chair. I move that this committee defer further consideration of the main estimates for the Department of Infrastructure at this time. Thank you, Madam Chair.
The motion is in order. To the motion.
Question.
Question has been called. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is carried. Consideration of the Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditure, 20242025 Main Estimates, total departmental, is deferred.
Carried
Thank you, Minister, and thank you to the witnesses for appearing before us. Sergeantatarms, please escort the witnesses from the Chamber.
Committee, we will now move on to the next department. Committee, we have agreed to consider Tabled Document 9320(1), 20242025 Main Estimates. We will now consider the Department of Finance. Does the Minister of Finance wish to bring witnesses into the House?
Yes, please.
Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Sergeantatarms, please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.
Would the Minister please introduce her witnesses.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, with me on my left is deputy minister Bill MacKay, and on my right is Terence Courtoreille, the deputy secretary to the financial management board. Thank you.
Does the committee agree to forego general comments on the Department of Finance?
Agreed.
Does the committee agree to proceed to the detail contained in the tabled document?
Agreed.
Committee, we'll defer the departmental summary and review the estimates by activity summary beginning with directorate starting on page 156, with information items on page 159. Are there any questions? No further questions. Please turn to page 157.
I'm backing up here. Starting on page 157 with information items on page 159, are there any questions? Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you well, I'm just waiting for the clock. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Madam Chair, I just want to look to the Housing Northwest Territories contribution, $76 million this year. Of that contribution, how much of that was spent on capital for new builds or upgrades to existing buildings, maintenance, etcetera?
Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I don't have operational level of detail regarding the housing corporation's work in front of me. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Member for Frame Lake.
Thank you. If the Minister doesn't have the information, there's not much point in me digging further so I'll defer that one, I guess, for now. What? I'm just stating the obvious. Thank you, Madam Chair. That's it for me.
Thank you, Member. No further questions there. Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm going to couch this question very much in the fact that I do not want to speak about bargaining. I understand the bargaining process has to go along its merry little way. But I do want to understand for the Public Service Act LT, how far along is that towards completion? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I think it's as far as along as it can be in the context of knowing that we certainly would never want to bargain in bad faith and in a situation of then changing, you know, you don't change the Act when you're in the midst of bargaining. That would not be the appropriate thing to do. So it's as far as it can be in the circumstances and then, yeah, whether it can be advanced further, subject to conclusion of the bargaining process, again I'll have to just go back and see where that's at specifically. But it's certainly front of mind to me to see that it makes we make some movement on it this Assembly. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Member for Great Slave.
Well, I note that the Minister and her department has aimed to see this bill passed during the life of the Assembly and look forward to further updates when the bargaining is complete. Thank you, Madam Chair.
I don't see a question there. Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Member for the Sahtu.
Thank you, Madam Chair. There on page 157, the contribution to the NWT Power Corporation, maybe I can ask a little bit more detail on the increase. Is it related to the Taltson hydro repair? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for the Sahtu. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. No, Madam Chair, it's not. This is very much directly related to the fact that there's been significant challenges. I mean, low water being probably top of mind on this one. It's not a capital it's not related to capital. It's not related to the operations, really, of the organization. It was either that there's and I don't have the numbers top of mind. But there was a significant amount of diesel that was burned over this last while because of low water and with high fuel costs, we had a pretty unfortunate combination of needing more diesel and high cost of diesel and that has resulted in a situation where if the if our government, the GNWT, doesn't step in and provide this funding, then that gets disbursed on to people's power rates, which obviously at this point in time, there's, I think, little capacity for folks to be paying higher and higher power rates. So this is the government basically stepping in to provide this. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Member for the Sahtu.
I got nothing further there, Madam Chair.
Thank you. No further questions. Member for Range Lake.
Thank you, Madam Chair. It's the evacuation travel support program, it's being sunset. Hopefully for good reason. But is the Minister confident that everyone who needs help from this fund has been helped and there are no there's nothing in the queue or things that are going to be harmed or going to not receive support by the sunsetting of these funds? Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Range Lake. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the last update of data that I have dates back now to February, so I will have to go back and reconfirm. But as of February, there were already well into almost 5,000 applicants who had received their funding. There was still at that time, which, again, I acknowledge is several months ago, but there was still at that time about 112 evacuee income disruption applications that were in process or being reviewed, and another 120 or so on the evacuation travel support that were in progress or being reviewed. Often the same households or same applicant in these cases. The reasons for review can be anything from someone not having completed the application form or not having provided a document that may have been requested. Sometimes we had instances of people giving the wrong bank numbers and so funding being, you know, not deposited or not able to be deposited. So that was the first part of the question.
The second part of that question concerning if there was someone who was still in progress at this point and I, again, expect those numbers have gone down. Then would they be subject to not having money? No, Madam Chair, I'm fairly confident that at this point, if there's only a handful left after the many thousands processed, that this could be funded somehow internally and they would still get the funding if it was if there is, in fact, someone that still has an outstanding claim. Thank you.
Thank you, finance Minister. Member for Range Lake.
Nothing further. Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you. No further questions. Please turn to page 157.
Finance, directorate, operations expenditure summary, 20242025 Main Estimates, $113,351,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Moving on to human resources beginning on page 160, with information items on page 162. Are there any questions? Member for Great Slave.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, in the department's business plans on page 97 I'll give the Minister and staff, to flip to that, a moment one of the oh, gosh, what are we calling them actions under the mandate commitment of engaging the public service to identify opportunities to improve efficiency, coordinate processes, to support longterm fiscal sustainability is the development and implementation of a Employee Satisfaction Action Plan. That includes information gathering and policy initiatives.
So I can see kind of why that was slotted under there. I guess my question to the Minister is, is a more satisfied workforce a more efficient workforce? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I'm not sort of a technical expert, but I don't think it's going to take technical expertise to say yes. More satisfied is more efficient, more productive, you know, easier to recruit, because you want people who will want to go and work at a place that reflects those kind of values. Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll see what the next question is.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Member of Great Slave.
Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. And I don't necessarily disagree with the Minister on that answer. I'm very keen to see what this action plan will look like once it's developed. I think the Minister is quite frank in her assessments and I'm certainly am quite frank in what I experienced in the public service since the pandemic, and what I hear from former colleagues across the GNWT, the morale is not good. And I guess how does the Minister envision an action plan that will really truly address morale? Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, yeah, this is something that I thought a lot about in the last few years, had a lot of hope that there would be an improvement in morale over the last Assembly, and then somewhere between multiple waves of emergency events and lockdowns and evacuations, that became very challenging and folks became even more stretched. And we wind up in the last while with employees either unable to do their jobs because they can't go into their workplaces, then, you know, publicly getting maligned for that, and then in other cases being asked to do even more even when they are in their normal work environments. So it's you know, and then being told they're not doing enough. So it has been a challenging few years. I am live to that. There's even, you know, survey fatigue. Although I am I want to say I'm very grateful people do continue to fill out the surveys. I had asked why we had to do a second employee engagement and satisfaction survey when we had still not really rolled out a response to the first the first one was delayed because of COVID, so here we are.
There are things that can be done. We did start to do the town halls. I've had town hall again since being in this role of this Assembly. You know, I want to do more of them. I think the Member, in fact, has had suggested to me that we should do some in person. I think that's a great idea. Yeah, there has to be, you know, across the board a number of things that can happen but, you know, engagement and hearing from folks at the frontlines, showing them that when we hear from them that we actually act on what they say. If I were to pick a few things as top choices, those would be them. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Member for the Great Slave.
Yeah, thank you, Madam Chair. And, you know, I do appreciate the push and pull that I have had with the Minister of Finance on this prior to my even being an MLA. I do know that she genuinely cares about the public service and I do want to, you know, remark on that publicly because it's really refreshing to see, honestly. What I would suggest is more initiatives where you're seeking employee input. Like, the 1800, 1900 suggestions I think that you got is a good place to start. And, really, you know, having the direction that you're giving filtering down through to line positions that are frontlines, that are middle management, just it's it means a lot when people see you and they know that you're genuine. And I hope the Minister does do those in person pieces with staff. Thank you. That's more of a comment.
