Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Premier and the Finance Minister do not like to miss any opportunity to talk about the $450 million spent on capital projects here in the Northwest Territories over the past few years. Yes, this spending is unprecedented capital dollars that are being spent in our communities when our economy needed it the most.
I’d like to again thank the federal government in Ottawa for all the millions of dollars that have flowed North through the various infrastructure stimulus programs that they have offered our program.
As a government we have always seemed to have an issue with carry-overs where capital dollars are approved in one year then never get spent because the project does not get finished. We took a step in addressing this carry-over issue by approving the capital budget in the fall of the year as opposed to with the operations and maintenance budget which we deal with in February and March. This move was supposed to help alleviate the carry-overs on an annual basis. Yes, we’ve had an inordinate amount of money to spend, but why are we again this year carrying over close to $130 million in capital, $72 million alone in the Department of Transportation?
What I hear from mid-sized construction companies in my riding and in the Northwest Territories, and the Northwest Territories Construction Association, is that they really wonder where all the money was spent. Big projects like the Inuvik School Project and highways and bridge projects ate up the majority of that money. Missing in the equation are projects that medium-sized construction companies could have bid on. Large projects are cutting out small to medium-sized construction companies who employ hundreds of people in our territory. These companies have not gotten much benefit from this unprecedented capital spending by this government. Perhaps what we need is a breakdown of where and for what all this money has gone to.
The smaller companies are getting scared. They have payrolls to meet, overhead and operational costs to bear, and all they see our government looking to is to shrink our capital plan back to more historic levels of around $75 million a year.
The Minister of Public Works and Services earlier today stated that we’re improving the government’s approach to capital and we are delivering capital infrastructure projects that benefit our workforce and our economy. Why is it, then, that there is so much concern out there amongst the small to mid-sized construction companies who indicate they are not getting the work...
Mr. Ramsay, you’re time for your Member’s statement is expired.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.
---Unanimous consent granted
Why is it, then, that there is so much concern out there amongst the small to midsized construction companies who indicate they are not getting the work or benefit of this spending?
We need to ensure as a government that we are spending as much of our capital dollars fairly and that there is a balance between large, medium and smaller capital projects around our territory to benefit our economy the most and the companies that depend upon it.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
