Bob McLeod

I don’t have any opening comments, Mr. Chair. If we can just get right into it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I would like to bring in a witness, with your approval.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With regard to the comments of the Member with regard to Aurora College, funds have been identified for ’15 and ’16 to do some planning on what this expanded role for Aurora College could be.

Another priority for our capital formula: Are we failing our people? We are always open to changing the process for the rating of projects, and certainly if that’s a recommendation coming from committee, I’m sure the government will be pleased to address that.

On Mildred Hall, the Department of Education has identified a need for renos to enhance the life of the assets and they are...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Member for his comments. As we all know, the draft capital budget was presented to Members back in June of this year, so it was early in the process.

There have been a number of briefings on how the capital budget process actually works. We have a formula where all of the projects are run through and they’re ranked on a priority basis. Based on the amount of money that’s available, the highest priority projects are funded on that basis. For every project, there are five criteria that are used. One is the safety of people, the safety of assets, the environment...

Yes, I would, Madam Chair.

That’s what we’re doing, is developing a business case. I expect that would be somewhere in the order of 500 to 700 million dollars. It would all depend on whether there’s a business case or not.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wouldn’t think we’re misleading anybody. We are looking at a plan. We are looking at options and we have excess power. We are working on a business case. If the business case presents that it’s feasible to export power after we’ve looked at the northern demands first, then it’s something that we are looking at.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my right I have Mr. Dave Heffernen, chief information officer for the Government of the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t know if Churchill was thinking of Giant Mine when he made that famous quotation. Perhaps a Yogi Berra quote of “it ain’t over ‘til it’s over” would be more appropriate.

We’ve been part of the Giant Mine process for some time. We see this as the most immediate response and step to deal with the problem. I’m not sure what the Member is suggesting, whether he’s suggesting we should stop everything and wait until somebody comes up with an innovative idea before we do anything more. As a government, we see the best approach right now is to deal with the immediate...

Thank you. I think the Member hit it right on the head. In the past whenever we wanted to develop our hydro resources, the companies that we were talking to always wanted us to take all of the risk and then they would take most of the power. I think that with the plan that we’re developing, we need to find a way to transport the power first. We want to bring the power to where the development will be happening so that we can promote development.

There’s a potential for nine new mines in the Northwest Territories by 2020 and invariably every one of them wants cheaper power. We’re also talking...