Caroline Wawzonek

Madam Chair, take that to the deputy secretary, please.

Abstain.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this spring's culvert work would come out of what would have been appropriated as part of the usual appropriation. So this is for work that was underway or not completed but underway or begun last year. The annual amount that is budgeted for culvert work I gather is $7.5 million, and that remains unchanged. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, so I would say that the Member is correct insofar as by having a large capital plan, we wind up that we are not going to be able to completely spend, if you will, and it may be difficult to know in advance which project is or is not going to go ahead. So you know, there's inevitably going to be some amount that does not get spent, and that's never going to be a perfect projection.

By having the large capital, we are not necessarily impacted immediately or taking away from operations. The operations budget is still, you know, existing and being developed on...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So there isn't, as part of the overall fiscal plan or picture, a capital reserve. The supplementary reserve, which we spoke about yesterday, yes, that was sitting at $35 million this year and is definitely seeing a fair bit of pressure on it right now. But when we're funding capital projects, you have to fund the capital projects 50 percent out of surplus dollars and then the other 50 percent would typically come from some form of borrowing.

So to the extent that we are eating in to or increasing our capital spend, we are drawing that down from the projected surpluses...

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I mean, there's different and Madam Chair, let me just address the confidentiality issue quickly if I might. I don't have a clock in front of me, but I'll try and be succinct.

Look, I do think we can do a different way of presenting this information. This wasn't raised to me in advance, and that's fine. But I do think there's ways of doing it. There's concerns around the longterm plan and concerns around sharing the budgets on the long term. Some of these projects are multiyear projects so sharing what's lapsing inevitably winds up sharing what some of the budgets...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, readily we don't have an answer to that question. So we'll certainly make a commitment to go and confirm both with Department of Infrastructure as well as Department of Finance to see if my understanding is if there's projects that had been previously carried over and that now are going to be lapsed and not advanced is what I'm hearing. I will go and double check on that, as I said. And yes, yes. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, we do have the percentage here. I am

We don't have 20222023 yet. In 20212022, at this point, Madam Chair, we're looking at about 49 percent, just over. 49.6.

Thank you, Madam Chair. It was on schedule to be complete by November of this year. There had been some talk of even being able to go down and to do some sort of formal opening. At this point, Madam Chair, I'm not sure whether that will still be the case, whether that's due to some delays that may arise out of the flood or not, I will when I have an update on that, I will certainly provide it to my colleagues. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, that information certainly is available, and I expect yes, I would think that we should be able to find a way to put that information forward, Madam Chair. Yes, thank you.