Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Public Works and Services and it gets back to my Member’s statement earlier where I spoke of the government spending an inordinate amount of capital dollars over the past three and a half years. It totals close to $450 million. I think it came at a good time for our economy, but people are left asking questions.
We’ve had, in the past, issues with carry-overs. We, in fact, changed our capital planning process to approve the capital plan in the fall of the year as opposed to the budget session in February/March. We’ve taken efforts to try to alleviate the carry-overs, and I’m left wondering why it is this year that the government, even though we are spending capital dollars, is carrying over $130 million, with $72 million of that capital plan contained in the Department of Transportation. I’d like to ask the Minister of Public Works to explain this amount of carry-overs. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Public Works and Services, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There was a barrage of questions in that preamble there. I’ll try to answer the best I can.
Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct; we’ve really taken the position that we needed to invest as a government with some funding that we were able to discuss and negotiate with the federal government to put into the economy of the NWT. We felt that the economy was in a slump across the country and we were not going to be exempt from it, and I think we’ve done very well. We were able to invest roughly $700 million in capital over the last two years in the area of infrastructure, and that includes several very large projects and it includes many, many projects that would be classified as small or medium, and the delivery has been going quite well.
We’ve been challenged historically with carry-overs. It’s an issue that we’ve been really focused on to deal with the level of carry-overs. I think by restructuring our capital approval process has helped us to alleviate that. We are also in a position where we now provide better oversight and don’t allow capital projects just to be parachuted as we move forward.
Things are going well on that front. We are seeing a downward spiral on our capital carry-overs and I expect that to improve. I have to say, though, that we were challenged; a challenge that we’re very happy to see is the large amount of capital projects that we have undertaken to do over the last few years. There have been some issues around getting approval from communities. There have been some issues around design that communities want that don’t necessarily fit the budget, and we’ve been in positions where a number of times bids or estimates have come in a lot higher than we anticipated. This is all attributed to the number for the capital and, of course, the large amount of projects is also a factor. Thank you.
The Minister’s right; on a percentage basis the carry-overs have come down from 33 percent, I think, to this year’s 26 percent, but it’s the dollar amount that’s alarming at $130 million and $72 million, like I said, contained in the Department of Transportation. I’d like to ask the Minister of Public Works and Services what effort is made in the capital planning process to ensure a balance between small, medium and large-scale capital projects. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we do have a huge deficit in terms of capital. It’s well over $2 billion if we were going to start to factor in all the needs across the Territories. We do have teams of staff that look at all the projects that come forward from the different departments and we do try to balance out our budget to try to allocate it on a basis where we can deal with the need that is most critical. We have worked out a formula where we have broken down the projects in terms of critical need, medium need, and the least need that would require attention. We try to invest our dollars along those lines.
We have tried to be fair when it comes to investment. For example, we invested, over the last couple of years, over $150 million in schools renovations and additions; $226 million into the area of airports, highways and roads; $82 million to various upgrades, including energy efficiency in our facilities; $57 million in hospitals, health centres; $56 million in the communities for community infrastructure; $57 million in the area of housing. There is a very good balance, and we have a team that monitors and provides oversight and we’ve also included filters within that process that has fresh eyes looking at the projects that are moving up the ladder until they’ve reached the point where the Minister of Finance and his team would make the final sign-off on it and bring it to the FMB for approval. Thank you.
I thank the Minister for that. I guess the next question I’d have is: last year the Northwest Territories Construction Association indicates that they never were consulted on the projects that were coming forward in the capital plan. So I’d like to ask the Minister what communication actually takes place between the government, Public Works and Services and an association like the Construction Association of the Northwest Territories in trying to determine what projects are coming up. Thank you.
Thank you. I would have to question that comment and review what information we provide to the Construction Association. We do have a very good relationship, as we do with the other organizations and Aboriginal governments. In many cases, once the budget is approved, we do provide that information to the relevant organizations and governments. Now this information is also public, once it’s approved. So in many cases there is ability to access the information off the Internet and it’s posted. So I would have to follow up to see if that is indeed the situation. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. McLeod. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in my Member’s statement, the concern out there is there is not enough work for the small to medium-sized construction companies in the Northwest Territories today, and I think it would be incumbent upon the government to discuss this situation with the Northwest Territories Construction Association. I’d like to ask the Minister what value Public Works and Services puts on the opinion of the Northwest Territories Construction Association. Thank you.
Thank you. We do place great value on our ability to have discussions with the NWT Construction Association. We deal with other associations across the Territories, also. We also value the input from the MLAs.
Mr. Speaker, we’re always in a position to improve our capital process, improve our capital delivery, and our target is to deliver all projects on budget, on schedule. However, there are always factors that come into play that don’t allow us to have that happen, but we want to continue to refine that process and see if our percentages can continue to improve and we expect it will. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Time for question period has expired. Item 8, written questions. Item 9, returns to written questions. Item 10, replies to opening address. Item 11, petitions. Item 12, reports of standing and special committees. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to waive Rule 93(4) to have Committee Report 5-16(6), Report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations on the Review of the 2009-2010 Annual Report of the Information and Privacy Commissioner of the Northwest Territories, moved into committee of the whole for consideration later today. Mahsi cho.
---Unanimous consent granted
