With that, I’d like to ask the Minister responsible for Public Works and Services if he has any opening comments on this department. Mr. McLeod, Michael.
I am pleased to present the Department of Public Works and Services Main Estimates for the fiscal year 2008–2009. The Main Estimates propose the department operations and maintenance budget for 2008–2009 of $57.8 million, which represents an 11.6 per cent increase in O&M funding over 2007–2008. In addition, the department has an infrastructure investment plan of $12.1 million for 2008–2009.
Position changes for Public Works and Services include the hiring of eight new apprentices in Fort Smith, Hay River, Fort Simpson, Inuvik and Norman Wells in designated trade occupations. An energy management specialist position was established in headquarters as part of the GNWT Energy Plan and Greenhouse Strategy, while a project officer is required to support the increased workload from the wood pile and facilities risk management program.
As part of the target reductions exercise, Public Works has identified five positions for elimination. Three of these five positions are currently vacant. The reduction will have no impact on existing employees. These three positions are located in Yellowknife, Hay River and Inuvik. The two remaining positions were responsible for maintaining the water and sewer system in Behchoko. Those positions were transferred to the community government effective April 1, 2008, to coincide with the community assuming responsibility for the system.
Public Works and Services is an essential partner in the achievement of government-wide goals, and the department continually strives to deliver high-quality services to its clients while achieving the best value for government, communities, businesses and residents. The department achieves this through support and leadership in the areas of active management, information and communication technology, procurement, records management, community fuel provision, telecommunications regulation, and electrical and mechanical safety.
The department also manages an additional $135 million for projects and services on behalf of clients through a revolving fund, chargebacks and capital transfers. These funds are used to provide computer and data communications for government offices; fuel services for residents, businesses and power corporations in 22 communities; and delivery of capital infrastructure for our clients.
One of the key initiatives for 2008–2009 is the Deferred Maintenance Program. Safe, reliable infrastructure is essential for the delivery of GNWT programs and services. The department maintains 60 significant buildings with an age of over 30 years. To date, assessments have identified over $150 million in deferred maintenance in 39 of these buildings. There are still a number of facilities that have yet to be assessed, and it is expected that costs will continue to increase as Public Works carries out assessments on these remaining buildings. The risks associated with this aging infrastructure will begin to be addressed in 2008–2009 through the implementation of the Deferred Maintenance Program. This program will have many benefits, including safer buildings, the reduction in the number of unplanned closures, a reduction in the use of substandard facilities, improved energy efficiency in many of the older facilities, and a reduction in unplanned expenditures.
In addition to the facilities owned and maintained by the GNWT, Public Works currently manages a lease portfolio valued at $17.5 million, with 57 leases across the Territories. Public Works reviews this portfolio regularly to ensure that occupied space meets the program needs of our clients. The GNWT is facing a difficult challenge in providing the programs and services residents require, given the fiscal resources available. Delivering and maintaining infrastructure required to deliver these programs and services has also proven challenging.
In response, Public Works and Services is leading a change in the way the GNWT approaches infrastructure. In consultation with the departments, Public Works will develop standardized designs for similar buildings such as schools, health centres and parks infrastructure. These standardized designs, once developed, will be used for all future infrastructure projects and should result in cost savings for the design and construction phases of these projects.
In the last fiscal year the department undertook several energy efficiency activities in the areas of planning, designing, building, maintaining and operating government-funded buildings and facilities. These initiatives were in support of the GNWT Conservation Action Plan, and they included thermal scanning of GNWT and community buildings, inspection of buildings’ mechanical and electrical systems, converting GNWT buildings in Fort Smith to electrical heat, using energy efficiency guidelines in the design of GNWT buildings, installing a biomass heating system in the North Slave Correctional Facility, and initiating a geothermal heating system in Aurora College, Thebacha Campus, in Fort Smith.
In 2008–2009, $970,000 in funding will be available through the federal ecoTrust and will be used to support projects that will further reduce GNWT energy use and achieve reductions in air pollutants and greenhouse gas emissions for facilities across the North. These projects include conversion of a maintenance garage in Fort Smith to electrical heat, installation of a wood pellet boiler in Chief Jimmy Bruneau School in Behchoko, a geothermal ground source heat pump project at Aurora College campus in Fort Smith, and a capital assets retrofit fund to conduct detailed energy audits on selected buildings across the territory.
With the Technology Service Centre, the department provides information, technology support and services to meet the business objectives of the GNWT. More and more, the ability of the government to provide services to northern residents is dependent on the availability of secure and reliable information and communications systems.
Finally, I would like to mention the provision of the central fuel services. Through the Petroleum Products Revolving Fund, Public Works and Services funds the provision of heating fuel and gasoline in communities where commercial operations do not exist. Through the Fuel Management Services Agreement, the Petroleum Products Division provides the Northwest Territories Power Corporation with all its requirements, and manages and operates a tank farm at 20 communities across the Northwest Territories. Under this agreement, PPD maintains three tank farms in very remote locations, as well contracting with and training local fuel delivery agents to provide necessary services. These agents have an important function in our communities, and Public Works and Services works with them to carry out this important service. In partnership with our supplier, PPD is exploring new re-supply routes, including bulk marine tankers via the Alaska Over the Top route to reduce shipping costs and gain access to larger, more competitive markets for fuel supply. We believe that this position will have a beneficial effect on the cost of fuel in communities served by PPD.
Public Works and Services continues to be responsive to its many clients and strives to provide high-quality services to departments and people of the Northwest Territories. The budget we are reviewing today will contribute to achieving this objective.
Mr. Chairman, that concludes my opening remarks. I would be happy to answer any questions the Members may have. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Minister.
At this time I’d like to call on the Chair who is responsible for the committee’s consideration of their budget. With that, I’d like to ask Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. The committee met with the Minister and his staff on April 10, 2008, to consider the department’s 2008–2009 Draft Main Estimates. The committee noted that the department is proposing to spend $57.8 million in operating expenses for the fiscal year 2008–2009. The proposed budget for the department’s capital plan is $12.1 million.
Now, Mr. Chairman, I will ask Mrs. Groenewegen to provide committee’s comments on issues arising out of their review of the 2008–2009 Draft Main Estimates. Mahsi.
The proposed Deferred Maintenance Program is billed under the work undertaken by the Risk Management and Assessment Program to identify critical maintenance deficiencies with the GNWT’s current infrastructure stock. The committee supports this initiative and sees it as an effective approach to managing future maintenance and energy costs and extending the life of these assets.
Public Works and Services provides water and sewer maintenance services on a contractual basis to several communities in the NWT which do not have trained personnel to carry out those services. Committee members would like to see those services devolved to the community and appropriate training programs put in place to support community government staff in assuming those responsibilities. Department officials indicated that they have been working with the school community government to establish a job-shadowing program for hamlet staff.
The Petroleum Products Division (PPD) purchases, transports and stores the annual requirement of petroleum products for NWT communities not served by the private sector. Through the Petroleum Products Stabilization Fund, which is generated through profits from sales to PPD customers, the PPD has been in a position to subsidize the cost of fuel products to non-government customers.
While committee members recognize that this subsidy helps to offset the very high cost of fuel in small NWT communities, more needs to be done to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels and provide communities with alternative sources of fuels, such as biomass. Members recognize that the shift away from the consumption of fossil fuels is a significant undertaking that will require time and collaboration across government departments and with communities.
The committee recommends that the department identify a process to providing renewable energy sources to communities as part of the Greenhouse Gas Strategy and Energy Plan.
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. At this time I’d like to ask the Minister if he’ll be bringing in any witnesses.
Yes, Mr. Chairman.
Does the committee agree that the Minister bring in his witnesses?
Agreed.
Agreed. Sergeant-at-Arms, could you escort the witnesses in, please.
Mr. Minister, can you introduce your witnesses for the record?
Yes, Mr. Chairman. With me today to present the Public Works and Services Main Estimates is Mike Aumond, the deputy minister, on my right; and on my left is John Gabel, director of the Technology Service Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Minister. Welcome, witnesses. General comments in regard to the department’s Main Estimates. General comments? Detail? Committee agree with the detail?
Agreed.
General comments, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. I appreciated the Minister’s opening comments here. I agree that Public Works and Services is a very essential partner in the achievement of government-wide goals, as he stated. A big one I’ve been emphasizing — and I know many people in this department have shown some interest in it — is dealing with our energy crunch and our environmental issues associated with greenhouse gas emissions. There’s sort of a happy overlap of a couple of problems that can be addressed with the same solutions.
I see one of the things mentioned is fuel services for residents, businesses and the NWT Power Corporation, provided in 22 communities. It’s very easy just to get in the habit of doing the same old thing and having the same old approach, but I think we’re trying to emphasize new ways of doing things, new approaches that actually address some of our problems. I know there are opportunities in this area to find new fuels that are better for the environment and, hopefully, ultimately cheaper — certainly, in full-cost accounting they will be beneficial to our local economies and so on. I’m hoping the Minister will be exploring that and that it will show up in their work — if not in what’s remaining of this year, then strongly in the rest of the life of the Assembly.
I note $150 million in deferred maintenance — 39 buildings. I’m wondering what proportion of that is now going to be handled through the New Deal funds by communities if those buildings are now part of a community’s responsibilities. If that’s not appropriate, I’d like to know that. The other thing is, how much of that is being addressed in this budget, so I can sort of gauge the length of time it will take to address this deficit in building maintenance and so on?
The Minister mentioned cost savings for the design and construction phases of the infrastructure projects, and that’s huge. But of course, even more expensive is the operation of those buildings throughout the rest of their lives. I know this is not new information, but I’m just trying to emphasize that whenever we talk about this, we need to be talking about that third and most costly phase and — more and more, as we get with the times, thinking about demolition and so on, bringing those things into the equation — the cost of reuse and recycling and so on.
I appreciated the projects that are listed in terms of energy efficiency and energy conservation. I think there are some good ideas with the way the federal ecoTrust dollars are being spent. I’ve also appreciated the progressive approach of hiring an energy specialist. I’m really encouraging that to happen in other departments. I’m hoping this department can share the benefits of that experience, certainly, if it shows us savings are possible.
Mr. Chairman, on the last part again, I’d like to just mention the Petroleum Products Division. I think it was mentioned in the comments from the Economic Development and Infrastructure Standing Committee. Again, we’re committing here…. PPD, Petroleum Products Division, is exploring new resupply routes, including bulk marine tankers via Alaska Over the Top and reduced shipping costs and so on. But these are perverse investments that show an ongoing commitment to fossil fuels when we have pretty strong evidence of what’s happening to the costs and what’s going to happen to the supply. It’s not something I enjoy saying, and I’m certainly cheering with everybody else with the few dollars’ drop in the barrel of oil, here, but somehow I can’t give that much weight.
So I’m hoping that much more effort goes into displacing our use of fossil fuels with other opportunities and with more efficiency and so on. The maintenance of bulk storage facilities: we spend millions and millions of dollars on this. It would be much nicer if we could find a way — granted the challenges involved — of finding cleaner fuels that don’t require that sort of infrastructure and cost.
I just wanted to mention those things. I’m sure other things will come out in the detail.
Minister of Public Works, Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A number of issues have been raised there. First of all, I recognize the Member’s concerns regarding the issue of the environment and the use of fossil fuels. We as a government have committed to looking at all the avenues to see how we can reduce our dependency on those fuels and introduce new sources of energy.
Of course, the supply of the product at this point is starting to become a concern. I think everybody would agree that the cost is becoming a real factor, and it’s going to force us to really become a lot more efficient and use a lot more alternative sources of energy. The PPD is a program set up to assist communities that don’t have any access to a private source of fuel. The program is designed so that it is full-cost recovery; it allows us to recover our expenditures in that area.
We are trying to do a number of things to do our business a lot better in terms of energy use. We have quite a few buildings in our government inventory. I think our numbers are around 350 buildings. We started, a couple of years ago, to do thermal scans, and we plan to do all of them. We’ve done, so far, 180 buildings. We’ve already recognized that there is a high percentage of them that need to be upgraded to be a lot more energy-efficient.
In terms of the question for funds that are being utilized from the New Deal to upgrade these buildings, the answer is that we’re not using any of the New Deal funds. These are buildings that belong to the Government of the Northwest Territories. However, we are doing thermal scans on buildings that the community would like us to include as part of this assessment.
We certainly will encourage, if any of the buildings were to be demolished or replaced, that we look at some type of recycling or look at the ability to reuse. We still are fairly new in this area and are therefore required to bring somebody on stream who can bring us the expertise required. That has resulted, in this budget, in including an energy specialist who would advise our government and all the different departments. We also hope they could help us when we deal with some of the communities as they move forward in their requirement to put together energy plans as part of their sustainable community long-term plans.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The wish of committee…. Sorry. General comments. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t have a lot of general comments, but what I’d like to do is maybe search out a little more information. Some of the general comments speak to an approach as opposed to specific line items. On one of the pages here — page 3 of the Minister’s opening comments — we talk about $150 million in deferred maintenance. I’m just wondering if they’ve developed a strategy that will help carry out some of that, or what’s the approach on how not only they’ve identified it, I guess — like I said, a strategy. How are they dealing with it?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. We haven’t come to the detail yet, but I understand your questions are on the opening comments. Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have a total of roughly $7.5 million in our budget to start working on the deferred maintenance issues. We plan to have that as an ongoing program. This amount would give us the ability to deal with around ten buildings per year.
I appreciate, on page 4…. This is an item I’ve highlighted a few times in the past in the 15th Assembly — the standardized design for buildings. I’m quite pleased to see it’s written into the Minister’s comments.
The issue I have here is that quite often some of these buildings, although they are important infrastructure…. What happens is the infrastructure then turns from needs to wants, and then from wants to artistic design, and then from artistic design to turning it into an award the whole world gets to see. You go from standardized windows of being normal rectangles to really interesting polygons in some community that you could never maintain if somebody puts a rock through those windows. So I’m pleased to see that some initiative is being taken in this regard.
What I am curious about, specifically, with this is: will a policy be developed and come forward soon? And when can Members expect to see some type of policy that will reflect this mantra cited on page 4 regarding standardized design?
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. I’ll turn to the Minister, but I think we’d agreed we were going to try to give our full general comments and let the Minister respond. So after this — is everybody agreed with that still?
Agreed.
So perhaps after this response you could lay out your general comments. We’ll get other general comments and have the Minister respond. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The issue of deferred maintenance has become very serious in the last while. This is one of the first years we’ve had a budget line to address any of the issues. The number of buildings that need attention is growing.
As an attempt to try to deal with the many issues that are challenging our capital process and capital investment, we are convinced that having at least the schematics and a design that’s fairly standard available for the communities and for most of our infrastructure…. We’re finding that, for example, we have water plants across the Northwest Territories — every community has one — and not very many of them are the same. Getting parts, finding people with the expertise on the different types of plants is becoming a very big challenge. We’d like to standardize that.
We’d like to have communities of basically the same size be able to see what they can get, and avoid going to the communities with a blank page and saying, “Tell us what you want.” That usually leads into a very long, drawn-out process that becomes very expensive. This way, we would have facilities that we would have predesigned. Communities could take a look at them and have some say, but not completely design it from scratch. I think that would save us a lot of time. It would reduce our carryovers, and it would probably go a long way in reducing our costs.
Mr. Chairman, before I go into continuing my general comments, I would disagree with shutting a Member down. I feel that my privilege as a Member has been taken away and my rights are being stepped on. I would caution the Chair in that regard. Whatever advice is given to shut down a Member’s privilege of debate…. This would be an unusual exercise of that privilege, because I have not given it up. I am prepared to accept the position of the Chair, but I wish to highlight that before I continue.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. We’ll take that into consideration. If you’ll just now deliver your general comments. I believe this has been discussed in committee. You probably missed that session, but I will take that into consideration and ask you to continue with your comments.
Well, I still have a couple of small questions. I feel that they’re appropriate, and I’ll continue with them in that regard.
Mr. Chairman, we have the infrared thermal scanning continuing on page 4, and it talks about community buildings. Although I support the GNWT scanning its buildings — and again, there’s no specific line item that points to this, so that’s why it is appropriate in opening comments — I’m curious as to whether the department actually charges back for this in any way. Is this something we do as a favour while we’re in the community? My thought is it would probably incur either overtime or extra work on behalf of the staff who would be in that designated area. That’s my question, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, the intent of providing the service to the community would be…. If, while we’re in the community and doing our own facilities and buildings, the community was interested in us doing the scan on any of their buildings, we would provide that at no cost. Should a request come in for us to specifically come in to do scans on any building that’s owned by a community, we would expect them to pay for our travel costs but not the actual scanning.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My last comment for opening remarks is I want to make note that it's good to see some ecoTrust money going to some good projects. I'd enjoy the fact that Public Works is working very hard to develop options like heat pumps and selling more wood boilers. It may not be the only solution to our energy crisis and the way it is, but the territorial government, as we all know, pays a fair amount in oil costs and to operate buildings. If we can find a cheaper solution, that certainly is a payback — within a reasonable amount of time, that is — I certainly support. That's highlighted on page 5, where Public Works has leveraged some of the ecoTrust funds from taking money and making it into real projects to deliver real results.
I believe that concludes my opening comments.
Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. As we all know, for this department and also all government departments, we have some major challenges in front of us. For ourselves, especially in the northern region of the Mackenzie Delta and the Beaufort Sea area, where there are very identifiable problems we're running into — from permafrost shifting, to buildings shifting and rotting pilings — I think we're starting to realize that the infrastructure challenges we face in the North are becoming more and more apparent. It's becoming more and more expensive to deal with those issues.
The same thing applies in regard to petroleum products. We realize there are some real logistical challenges we face in the North, just trying to get access to fuel. We had fuel shortages last winter in Inuvik. Fort McPherson was out of fuel, and Inuvik. The costs became so unbearable because of fuel supply, and not the dependable fuel supply that we're used to, because something happened in an Alberta refinery, where it shut down, that affects the North, especially the northern communities.
It's also important to train people to take over capacity issues. You talked about operators in regard to supply services and water treatment plants and whatnot. I'm glad to see that you've moved in the area of Behchoko. But also, you do have similar arrangements in the communities I represent — Aklavik, Tsiigehtchic and Fort McPherson — which are the only three communities left where POL provides that service to the local municipal authority.
Again, there are people who are being trained. They were down here last week getting more training. I'd like to also see something similar to what was done in Behchoko by way of transferring either the people who are there to the local community authority, or get the people who are trained up and running in the plants.
The other big challenge that we face…. I know we talk about finding unique ways of reducing the costs of fossil fuels, but people don’t realize the cost of the alternatives that are going to have to be there to basically convert those communities. Sure, it would be great if we have projects in communities, where you have a small mini-hydro project. But again, those are all very cost-intensive. You're talking tens of millions of dollars to make these conversions and switch over to another system.
At the end of the day, we have to assess, analyze, exactly what the cost of that decision is going to be, weighing the costs of getting off of fossil fuels in these diesel communities. Whatever we do, it has to be universal. It has to be right across the Territories. Everybody in the Northwest Territories depends on diesel fuel to heat their homes, and in most cases, to run their power and also to run their vehicles. I think it's something we have to work on, but again, it's going to be a very costly endeavour.
In regard to the Petroleum Products Division, it does provide the costs to communities. The insanity of how fuel gets to the Northwest Territories is that most of the fuel going to Alberta from Norman Wells goes through a pipeline. It goes south and then goes to a refinery in Alberta. Then we purchase our fuel in regard to the Syncrude plant outside of Edmonton, put it on a rail system, send it to Hay River, put it on a barge, take the barge, go up the river, take the fuel off the barge, put it into tanks, take it off the tanks, and put it in a home or into the power plant. That fuel is moved about ten times before it's finally being used for its end purpose.
We have to find a way to deal with the logistical costs of moving fuel in the Northwest Territories. Buy bulk purchase, by way of putting it in a tank, or buy it from Valdez or wherever we can get the cheapest price, bring it over the top, store that barge or whatnot in the Beaufort, and distribute to the Beaufort-Delta communities so they don't have to handle this fuel ten times over.
The bottom line for communities is that we have to have sustainable communities. The biggest cost to sustainable communities is energy: the cost of heating our public infrastructure, the cost of deliver fuel services by way of schools, health care centres and whatever. We have to realize that unless there's an alternative that's going to happen overnight and you hit a switch and it will happen…. Again, it's not realistic. So we have to do more planning in that area.
I would just like to state that for the Department of Public Works there are alternatives. We are looking at residual heat systems in the communities. I know, in the community I represent — Fort McPherson — there have been capital investments, put in place by the Gwich'in Development Corporation and the Power Corp, tied into different public buildings and whatnot. But again, it's trying to educate the municipalities, the Department of Public Works and Services and people on the ground that they have to be able to realize that in the long term there will be savings, but you have to be able to review that system and not be opposed to these types of capital investments in those communities.
With that, Mr. Chair, those are some of my general comments. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. I'll turn now to Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just in regard to the petroleum products, it's good to hear that they're looking at the Over the Top route, which is a cheaper way of getting fossil fuels into our communities, such as diesel, which is really needed in the communities I represent in Nunakput. The cost of one community's private sector…. Three really rely on the PPD, the Petroleum Products Division, of the government.
I really worry for this winter in regard to the high cost of fuel in my communities. We don't have any alternative sources like we do here in the capital and in the southern parts of the territory. We rely on the petroleum products in the smaller communities. With the high cost of fuel, that's the big thing that I'm worrying about this year. If we could get it cheaper by the Over the Top route, it's a good thing. It's a lot less strain on the community governments, the hamlets and your housing authority.
From what I see here with the Minister and his staff, it's good to see the progress they're working on. That's all I have to say. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. Any more general comments? Moving on to the response from the Minister. Minister McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We certainly agree with the comments that were made by the Members.
The issue of pilings has been something that has proven to be very expensive in the last while, as we've experienced change in our climate. We're starting to see a lot of our buildings in the northern end of our territory having problems with pilings. It has forced us to do a lot of work to rectify the situation and look at different ways to try to avoid using the wood pilings that have been causing us problems.
The comments about fuel being expensive, and concern about the supply this winter is certainly a real one. I'm happy to say, though, through our PPD we were able to have all the fuel delivered to our communities through one form or another. Unfortunately for the community of Good Hope, we had to bring the fuel in by air, because our supplier was not able to have it delivered there. Nonetheless, there was a contract put in place, and they honoured it.
We have really been trying hard to move away from providing all the operation of water plants over the last several years. We have, for the most part, been fairly successful. I think there are only about three or four communities now that require our assistance to operate the plants, and more so just to provide some of the maintenance and provide the support.
We continue to look at putting out a system that would have water plants fairly consistent in terms of them being designed and built the same, so that we can have people in the communities that can go from one community to another should there be a shortfall in staff.
I also, of course, have to agree with the Member for Mackenzie Delta that we have to explore other avenues for alternative energy, as the communities are very challenged at this point to deal with the high cost of living, and that includes power and heating fuel. The Over the Top route has allowed us to find a cheaper supply. It is less handling, as the Member indicated. Through the Alberta system there is a lot of shifting and moving of the product. Over the Top would require us to bring in a tanker — I think this year it’s coming from California. We’ll have it brought into the Mackenzie Delta. It’ll service the communities right up to Norman Wells if there is a desire for them to do that.
We have a committee that is looking at options of how we can deal with some of the energy challenges we have in our system and in our communities. We have provided suggestions to them to investigate regarding energy and energy management to our communities and in our facilities. Those things, hopefully, will prove to be successful at finding some sort of alternate energy systems.
General comments. Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to provide a few comments on Public Works and Services. I know the reduction exercise was there and the department was challenged, but they’ve done a good job in coming up with the reductions that were asked. They’re up a little bit, but I think it’s all very defensible.
I wanted to mention that it’s a department where there are a lot of challenges, and the Minister and the management inside that department are managing the issues there quite well. I didn’t have any real concerns with what’s happening there, aside from the fact that we have to be very cognizant of the increases in energy costs. Mr. Bromley spoke earlier of what those are, so we’ve got to keep our eyes squarely on that.
We’ve also got some issues with aging infrastructure that we need to take care of, and asset management — having people in communities that can look after what we have there on the ground. Things are looking relatively good here in Public Works and Services.
The one comment I did have would have to do with the TSC. Again, it’s a valuable service that the TSC provides the government with. But from a budgeting perspective, I’m wondering if any thought’s been given to perhaps having the TSC establish its own budget instead of charging back various departments for utilization of their services. To me, that would be more of a straightforward approach and easier for the public and for Members of this House to comprehend if we had a system like that, where the TSC would have to state their budget on an annual basis. That’s something that as we go forward, we can work through the business plans next year or come up with a different model, because it is a little bit confusing following all the chargebacks to the TSC.
Those are just some comments, Mr. Chairman. Again, I wanted to thank the Minister and his staff. I think things here, for the most part….
One other thing I did want to mention: I was very impressed with the Minister and the department for coming up with the briefing on the capital-planning process and some big issues there that we’re trying to tackle as a government, and I think they’ve done a tremendous job in that area too. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Minister.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s always good to hear kind remarks about some of the work we’ve been taking on.
There are a number of things that we’ve focused on this time around as we brought our budget forward. We’ve really tried to focus our reductions on areas that we felt would avoid cutbacks to programs or program areas — some of the statutory requirements and programs that are scheduled to sunset or had significant concerns from the Members of this House. It’s also allowed us, in our new initiatives, to bring some investment to an area of real concern, and that is deferred maintenance. We’ve also been able to hire a number of apprentices, so we’re quite happy with that, that these things are in our budget.
The issue about the TSC having their own budget is something, up to this point, our staff has had general discussion on. We’ve really not pursued this as a desired way to do this, because right now, through a chargeback system, the growth is really paid for by the departments, and the onus is on the departments to control the growth. Going to another system, where we would put it in our budget, we may lose some of that. Thank you.
General comments. Detail.
Agreed.
Okay, we’ll move to Department Summary, page 5-7, Operations Expenditure Summary: $57.8 million. Again, we’ll defer that Department Summary and return to that at the end.
We’re on page 5-8, Active Positions — By Region, information item. Agreed?
Department of Public Works and Services, Department Summary, Active Positions — By Region, information item, approved.
Another information item, Active Positions, Community Allocations, 5-9.
Department of Public Works and Services, Department Summary, Active Positions — Community Allocations, information item, approved.
Revenue Summary, information item, page 5-10.
Department of Public Works and Services, Department Summary, Revenue Summary, information item, approved.
We’re now under Directorate. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Apologies here. I have a question on 5-10.
Do we have agreement to go back to 5-10?
Unanimous consent granted.
