Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This question is for the Minister of ENR. The last two years we had beluga whales stuck in Husky Lake, just east of Tuk. Can the Minister advise me what the department will do this summer to try to stop them from entering the lake and help avoid their suffering?
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Mr. Speaker, fundamentally and initially, this is a federal responsibility, but ENR tries to be as responsive and as involved as possible. Of course, I would defer to the superior knowledge and expertise of my colleague. If he has any specific suggestions in anticipation of the coming fall, I’d be most happy to sit down and talk to him about that.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I look forward to that, Mr. Minister. I’m here for you. We must have lost about 300 to 400 beluga whales. Just hearing that the Minister has already committed to me in regard to working with me, I’d take that as a yes.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. I don’t know if there was a question there, but the honourable Minister Miltenberger.
Mr. Speaker, clearly, I appreciate knowing the Member is there for me. I look forward to maybe sitting down with him before the end of session to talk about some specifics we could move on collectively.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final question. The department of ENR should really do something before these whales become Species at Risk and my people cannot hunt these. I look forward to working with the Minister.
No question there, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
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Thank you, Mr. Speaker. During Member’s statements I raised the issue of the Infrastructure Acquisition Plan. It’s like an open book for businesses out there to bid, tender and whatnot because they have our clear reference guide as to what we’re willing to pay, not to say we don’t pay more at times. My questions really go to the Minister of Finance to find out what he would be willing to do to help update the process to ensure we don’t show all our cards when it comes to going out there for bidding opportunities. Is he willing to look at updating the infrastructure plan, as I had suggested earlier, where we list the details of the project but keep out the dollar amounts?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The area of infrastructure acquisition has been one of concern for the Government of the Northwest Territories. We’ve initiated an Infrastructure Cabinet Committee led by the Hon. Michael McLeod, who’s been working with a number of other departments to come up with options, timing of when we release the Capital Acquisition Plan. As well, for example, the Member has raised the issue of having some of our smaller capital items in a grouping.
That is all under consideration at this point. We’d have to work with the committee to see if there’s an acceptable way of proceeding forward.
It’s really appropriate, although we’re not allowed to waive items here, that the colour of the Main Estimates is gold. I had a reference to it recently as “it’s the gold book for tendering,” and this provides a reference.
The issue really is: would he be willing to look at this and address this? I didn’t hear that clearly. It sort of was a wishy-washy answer. I want to hear that this government is willing to act, to operate in the best way for the people of the Northwest Territories, and giving the numbers out is not sound management. Will the Minister commit to including this item as an issue to deal with in their planning?
Mr. Speaker, obviously the Member is not hearing what I’m saying, or there’s something not connecting here because I believe I committed to working with the Members on the Infrastructure Acquisition Plan. In fact, it is a concern to us. That is why we’ve put an Infrastructure Cabinet Committee group together and are working with Members on the budget process, looking at timing, looking at how we bundle our projects together, and how they’re presented to the people of the Northwest Territories. We will work with committee on that. So yes, we are working with committee, and we’ll continue to do so.
Mr. Speaker, my humble apologies go to the Minister of Finance if he actually had a commitment in there. Usually, they’re so thinly veiled they’re hard to recognize. Well, they’re even worse from the Minister of ENR. But can we expect to see something in a timely way by this fall, before business plans, on this specific subject?
Obviously, our briefings are working because the Member is aware we’re planning to go to committee. We’re looking at the timing of the budget. We’re looking a number of issues around trying to come back with a way of limiting the forced growth in our Capital Acquisition Plan.
We’ll continue to work with Members on the timing of it. We’re hoping that in this budget, this fall, we should be able to present the Capital Acquisition Plan at a different time from what we’ve done and a different practice from what we’ve done in the past.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate the Capital Acquisition Plan. We’re going to look at a new schedule, and that’s good. That’s good. But my question really was: before the business plan starts, will the Minister be bringing forward a plan of how to address this? As he said already, it’s coming to committee, but will we see it before the business plan starts this fall?
We’ve made the offer to committee to work with committee closely on this process of how we proceed and come up with a common practice we can support going ahead. So yes, we’re going to be working with committee before a draft acquisition plan and before committee members. We have quite a number of issues to deal with in that time.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
