Glen Abernethy

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The irony is not lost on me that today I’m sitting here defending this fence when six years ago I was sitting almost in exactly the same seat you are throwing this, actually, exact line out of the budget. At that time, six years ago, what I wanted to know, and what committee wanted to know, was what has changed in the facility. The facility was originally designed for territorial inmates two years less a day at a certain security level. At that time we were asking, why does it need a fence when it was originally designed without one. Those are questions I asked before I...

I do, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. With me today is Paul Guy, the deputy minister of Public Works and Services.

Mr. Speaker, increasing employment opportunities where they are most needed is a key priority of this Assembly. We need to connect our labour force with the available public service jobs across the NWT. As part of our Workforce Planning Strategy, the Department of Human Resources is developing a Regional Recruitment Program. It will incorporate unique approaches to recruitment with on-the-job training so that people across the North have opportunities to be supported in their development as public servants.

The GNWT actively recruits Northerners to fill vacant positions, especially in the...

In the communities where we have responsibility for providing the fuel, we do a bit of an analysis in the communities on what the demands are going to be. It’s not just home heating fuel; it’s diesel, it’s automotive fuel, sorry, aviation fuel, it’s all these things. I think it’s probably a little premature to assume that we’re never going to need automobile fuel or aviation fuel. So there’s always going to be a need for some tanks, but I take the Member’s point that if we continue to move more in the way of biomass, there may be less need for larger tanks in the future.

There will likely...

I remember how frustrating it can be not having the information and I apologized to the Member for that already and I will apologize again. It was a bit of a communication error and we will make sure that when I know, you know. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The way we accommodate that is the old vehicle will become the backup. It will not be taken out of the community. We will continue to use it, and many years down the road, obviously, when it’s time, the new vehicle would eventually become the backup and it still staggers out in that pattern.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When that program was originally designed, we did have a target that we were working to, which is about $3.8 million, and eventually to have that completely self-funded. We’re rapidly moving towards that. For today, technically the answer is yes. There is a cap of $3.8 million. But I am very interested and I’m sure that others are interested, that once we are fully self-sustaining on that project, it would only make sense to look at a way to continue to expand that and fund it, obviously from within as well. The more we can save, the more we can cap that up, but right...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member and I have had a number of conversations about that Tulita farm upgrade that we’re doing there. Just for the record, it is substantially complete. We’re using the old dispensers for the remainder of this year, as the new dispensers will actually be in in the spring. But for the most part, it is substantially complete and I have already committed to the Member that we would do a bit of a post-mortem on this project.

Having said that, we have also worked with the community and the Member and everybody involved when those issues did come up. I believe that we were...

I do, Mr. Chair.