Daryl Dolynny

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Sorry about that. Last week in Yellowknife I had the pleasure of attending the Northern Governance and Economic Prosperity Conference that brought together indigenous northern government, business leaders, policymakers, social activists and economics under the theme Pathways to Prosperity.

The premise of the conference was to reflect on northern political institutions that could change to better adapt to various governance authorities while balancing the social and economic challenges. This was a tall task, but I must praise the work of the conference co-chairs, Mr...

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Minister Beaulieu.

I guess in one sense – and I’ll have to go back and look at the Hansard – we’re doing a better job to get a better handle on our deferred maintenance. Buildings are coming off the queue, so to speak, with new buildings, and that this number was coming down from what I think was said by the Minister. Now we’re hearing that that number is going to stay consistent because the projects are going to be compounded. I guess as a Regular Member I have a hard time understanding both sides of that definition. We’re making improvements and yet that number is going to have to remain the same as an outlook...

Thank you, Mr. Moses. Minister Beaulieu.

I appreciate the Minister’s forensic review of those terms just so we know what we’re talking about, and I think everyone appreciates knowing the terms.

That said, as the Minister indicated, the deferred maintenance component on the capital side has been in historical past a fairly large and significant number of the budget. I believe that number has come down over the last couple budgets, but is still, as the Minister just indicated, it is a $5 million component.

What is the forecast that the department is looking at in their deferred maintenance budget for the next couple of years? Is this a...

No further questions.

I will take that as a yes from the Minister. Thank you. I have no further questions.

I do appreciate that response. My next series of questions with this page deal with a lot of facility upgrades and renovations within a number of communities. My question is, from a standpoint of a user, or basically, a health professional, as we are all aware, a number of our health professionals do travel and do work in various communities, whether you’re a nurse or in any type of health capacity. Do these facilities, when we’re looking at doing these retrofits, these replacements, is there a common theme on trying to create some universality in the design so that there’s a familiarity when...

From what I can gather, a portion of that lot was decommissioned or under remediation, and that amount of money for that demolition will be included in the whole component cost of that project as we move forward for capital depreciation and amortization.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Tabled Document 64-17(3), Northwest Territories Capital Estimates 2013-2014, and would like to report progress. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of Committee of the Whole be concurred with. Thank you.