Shauna Morgan

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on a heartwarming note to end the week, I'd like to shine a spotlight on the transformative work that the NWT Literacy Council has been doing in communities across the territory. Their program Reading Together provides opportunities for fathers who are incarcerated to connect with their children through bedtime stories. They get to choose a book that their children would like, create a reading kit to send to their kids, including new pajamas, stuffies, and a toothbrush, and then the dad gets to make a recording of him reading the book and sending bedtime...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So I guess my area of confusion -- and maybe the Minister can clear this up -- is that on the one hand it seems to be the place where projects that keep getting deferred end up that aren't necessarily top of the priority list but, on the other hand, we see that some of these projects are there because it's a life safety issue. And so I don't know how both of those can be true. Can the Minister explain? Thank you.

I definitely appreciate that. So when the department is considering new highways, new capital highway projects, is the data about how much it takes to maintain and repair a highway each year -- is that taken into account in terms of predicting future O and M and capital costs for a highway; is that taken into account before embarking on a new highway capital project? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When this project was thought up, was there alternatives that were identified in a, you know, project proposal in terms of how else they challenges might be addressed? And does that document still exist somewhere? I know that it's -- we're a little bit further along into the project now but I'm just trying to understand how a project like this gets ranked as sort of top priority as a major new capital building in our territorial budget when it seems that there are alternatives to building a $32 million building. But were other possible solutions to those challenges...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister explain which kind of highway repairs would fall under capital versus which might fall under operations and maintenance? We see a number of different highway projects listed here under asset management. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. And so currently these services are already being provided out of a leased space, so -- but an A rating for mitigation, I think -- unless I'm misunderstanding the system -- implies that there's very few to no alternatives. What's wrong with the idea of just continuing to lease space instead of building a new $32 million building? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And certainly this is a new area for me as well, but can the Minister confirm whether or not education authorities are actually aligned with ECE's own capital standards or they're not yet. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

So just to clarify, $16 million has already been spent but construction hasn't begun? Does that mean materials have already been procured, or that $16 million has been spent on, like, planning stages?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So can the Minister or her staff clarify in that process of working things out with the Aurora College board, did you ask them to identify projects like under a certain funding limit, like within a certain funding range? Okay, we could afford to do things around this range, what have you got for us, or did you ask them to identify projects based on the level of urgency? I'm just wondering how this particular project was identified as something that we should do now and not something that we should look to the federal government to fund or put off until later. I'm...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So first I wanted to ask some questions about the territorial fire centre. Can the Minister just provide us with the total budget for building this new project. Thank you.