Thank you. Well, these estimates reflect the budget we passed last year, is that correct? Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it -- yes, so it should be from 2024-2025 there is the slight surplus of $257,000 and that's being, again, put there, so, yes, it should reflect the total impacts from anything that happened over the course of the year. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Range Lake.
Thank you. It doesn't surprise me that there's a surplus from extended health benefits given that was the point of changing them. I'm just -- I think conceptionally it's disappointing to think you're taking money from one class of people and giving it -- to pay for the benefits of another class of people. I think, again, conceptionally that's not great. I still get plenty of complaints. I get a constituent who texts me monthly with his -- the increased costs to his medical needs because of income testing of extended health benefits, something I do not support. So I mean, like I said, conceptionally unfortunate because I think that's how many people will feel when they understand that there's a surplus from those benefits and that that surplus is being used for other benefits when everyone should be treated, you know, equally and have full access to the care they need regardless of circumstances. So thank you for that. Again, I support the Metis health benefit program. I think it -- I think we are stepping up as a government. That's a very good thing. I hope that the federal government will come to its senses and pay for this. There's a federal election upcoming, no doubt. Perhaps this is something that the Premier can write to the party leaders about to ensure we can take this off our books and get some financial flexibility into -- or sustainability into the health care system. But, yeah, I just -- I hear about this all the time, about the additional financial hardship that's been put on my constituents, and obviously that's the story for many Northerners right now and, yeah, it's just disappointing to see the numbers on the page. Thank you.
Thank you. Is there any other Members that want to speak to this? Okay, seeing no further questions.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, supplementary health programs, not previously authorized, $611,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Health and Social Services, operations expenditures, total department not previously authorized, $19,901,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Please turn to page 10 for the Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, operations expenditures, corporate management, not previously authorized, $45,000. Are there any questions? Seeing no further questions.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, operations expenditures, corporate management, not previously authorized, $45,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, operations expenditures, economic diversification and business support, not previously authorized, $145,000. Are there any questions? Seeing no further questions.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, operations expenditures, economic diversification and business support, not previously authorized, $145,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, operations expenditures, minerals and petroleum resources, not previously authorized, $818,000. Are there any questions? I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have no issue with this; I just want to know more and understand more. I see it's fully offset by the Government of Canada. Can the Minister, please, explain what the high resolution airborne geophysical survey for critical minerals is. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is $600,000, and it is being fully offset from revenues from CanNor, and what they are doing with this is a geophysical survey that will help enhance some of the quality of our existing geological, geophysical data, and with that, in turn, when you increase the available knowledge and information, it helps anyone that's looking around at what is in the ground to identify where there is likely to be critical mineral or other mineral deposits based on this data, and then they can go on and use that as a beginning point to hopefully come and do their own exploration. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Great Slave.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Hoorah, keep going. Thank you.
Thank you. Any other Members that want to make comments, general questions? Seeing no further questions.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, operations expenditures, minerals and petroleum resources, not previously authorized, $818,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, operations expenditures, total department not previously authorized, $1,008,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you. Please turn to page 13 for the Department of Infrastructure.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, energy and strategic initiatives, not previously authorized, $76,000. Are there any questions? Seeing no further questions.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, energy and strategic initiatives, not previously authorized, $76,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, programs and services, not previously authorized, $18,340,000. Are there any questions? Seeing no further questions.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Infrastructure, programs and services, not previously authorized, $18,340,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you.
Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 2, 2024-2025, Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, regional operations, not previously authorized, $14,720,000. Are there any questions? I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, I'll just ask these one at a time.
The first one I have a question about is the additional lease funding to address the shortfall in the general purpose office space budget. Just wondering why there was a shortfall there; it seems like something that's relatively predictable and stable. If they could give me some substantiation for that one, please. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there's a couple of factors that can be -- that can result in the increase. First is there is -- well, primarily is that there was -- there was and continues to be a plan to reduce the overall lease footprint and to get to a place where we have less footprint and therefore less costs, and that was being built in. Unfortunately, some of that work is taking a little longer to get to, and as a result so while they have reduced the budget for leases, they ultimately found that there was base rent, then base rent escalations by landlords and also operations and maintenance costs with that. So between those two things, the numbers didn't go down. They, in fact, went up. But we are still committed in the longer term, Mr. Chair, to doing a review and to reducing the footprint. Thank you.
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Member from Frame Lake.
Okay, thank you. That's a little bit tough to hear that we're trying to save money and ended up spending more. But -- okay.
The next one I was wondering about is just the funding for the two winter roads. How are we managing to under budget for these? I mean, these are roads that we've been running for decades. We should have a good idea of the operating costs of them. Even knowing that there might be, you know, changes in -- from season to season as to different demands but I would expect that, you know, these costs are pretty significant. So is there a reason why they went up so much this year?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, they are sometimes quite stable but last year and this year as well, but last year in particular was the first year where knowing of the low water levels and knowing also that there had been reductions even at that point in the amount of barging that came up and the year previous, the department expected and was correct in expecting that there it would need to do some additional work. So some of the things that led to much higher than usual budgeting was that there was additional flooding being used on the portages, additional flooding on all crossings in order to bring up the amount of load bearing that was available. There was widening done which, of course, takes more time, more staffing, more hours. And also some work done -- work that gets done regularly to remove trees along the pathway but with some of the wildfires, there was additional work that needed to be done to clear the areas as well as additional work that needed to be done more than just waiting year over year and doing a cycle but to actually widen the road, again, knowing there's likely to be larger trucks, more trucks, coming through. In addition, there was increased inspection being done so more staff are being put -- more time being dedicated to having folks on the roadway. And that -- well, I guess I'll stop it there, Mr. Chair. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Frame Lake.
No further questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. Any other -- any further questions from Members? I'm going to go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Following up on my colleague's questions about shortfalls in general purpose office space leasing, can the Minister share, or does she know, to what extent are GNWT office space leases concentrated with one commercial landlord?
Thank you. I'm going to go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, Mr. Chair, I'm happy to have the chance to say that we didn't necessarily, you know, lose money, but the budget was reduced in the hopes that they'd be able to move forward a little faster in terms of getting this -- getting a project off the ground that can reduce our lease space.
Currently, there are 72 percent of the total GNWT lease space is leased. There is 107 individual leases across all regions of the territory. Now, whether or -- the degree to which those are all individual, we have 82 with northern landlords, or 38 percent of our space; 25 of these leases are with southern landlords, which is approximately 62 percent of the space. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you for that. But has there been analysis done specifically to what extent the value of the leases are concentrated with one single company; has that analysis been done? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I can't speak to that. I don't have that level of detail here on the supplementary estimates document. I'm certainly happy to get back to the Member maybe with my other hat on another day. Thank you.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And so, I mean, the danger, of course, is that if we put all of our eggs into the basket, or many of them, most of them, of one company that's leasing us office space, we put ourselves at the mercy of cost increases, whether that's space costs or costs for various, you know, renovations and there's not much we can do about it if we're very dependent on one particular commercial landlord. So has the GNWT analyzed any risks associated with our dependence on landlords and us being at the mercy of costs that might increase as a result? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. To the Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there are, indeed, industry standards for public sectors in terms of the amount that should, you know, ideally be held both between being an owned facility versus being a leased facility. Mr. Chair, again, I don't have with me right now for the supplementary estimate document where we fall within that. My recollection was that we actually were falling within the industry standard but, again, I don't have that here to confirm. There is a significant difference as between Yellowknife in particular, where there is a different market for office space as compared to, in particular, small communities and even regional centres. So, Mr. Chair, again, I'm more than happy to have a much longer conversation about leasing. It's certainly one, as I'm indicating here, that I've got my eye on. The Department of Infrastructure manages it for all other departments which makes an added complication in that there's different needs depending on those services of different departments. So I can say that when leases do come due, they are publicly tendered, and so we are seeking to get good market rates. And one good thing in Yellowknife. Which does tend to be the place where people are concerned about who we are leasing from, there is a greater amount of space available which makes it more easier to get a better market bid. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you. I'll go to the Member from Yellowknife North.
