Katrina Nokleby

Yes, Madam Chair. I would like to bring Dr. Joe Dragon, my deputy minister, and Mr. Gary Brennan, the director of financial services.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The marine operations listed here are the ferries only. The MTS has its own revolving fund, and it does have its own separate budget. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We're always looking at ways that we can better optimize. I think the Member's points are very good. Why buy five types of engines that we would then need five different types of people to service or parts for? Your comments are noted. Definitely. If my department is not already thinking along those lines, then we'll definitely be having a conversation afterwards that they should be. I would assume they are. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't believe that the double-hulled barges are any lesser in volume than the ones that we already had. If anything, I do believe they are perhaps larger volumes. I see Mr. Brennan shaking his head "yes," so there is no reduced capacity with the new barges. Thank you.

A working group of ADMs from Lands, ITI, and Infrastructure have been considering approaches to deal with pressure on the land and outside campgrounds. I will ask that ENR also be looped into this process. Departments will be working on a joint communication approach on the subject, in the event that there is freelance camping beyond the campgrounds. Departments' inspectors are cross-appointed between health and departmental programs for compliance and enforcement under land and resource management legislation.

The GNWT recognizes that people will be enjoying social distancing out on the land...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't have the group names in front of me, and I will pass that off in a second. I just wanted to state that the Department of Infrastructure no longer has any agreements with land councils for subsidized leases, so the practice has been discontinued. A submission has to be prepared to reduce the Infrastructure lease budget by $140,000. The accounting offset is included in revenue, so that's why it's showing up. After this, it will no longer be involved in our budget. Thank you, Madam Chair. Sorry, I want to just pass to Dr. Dragon. He can tell us which ones those...

Thank you, Madam Chair. As any department would have, we do have a preventative maintenance program, an asset program, where we would be looking at items like the ferries and others to determine if they are near the end of their useful life, and whether or not replacement would make sense than continuing to retrofit. Currently, we're going to be applying for funding under our low carbon energy efficiency fund. I think I've got that right, but the LCEF, and we'll be looking for our money there to work on our ferries and potentially purchase new ones. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As I mentioned in the House yesterday, they are on time. They will be delivered in August. Sorry. They were $29 million. Maybe I will just ask Dr. Dragon to just fill in a little bit more of the information. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Yes, my department constantly advocates and lobbies with the federal government for more funding for our programming, including SEED. We have numerous ongoing conversations with CanNor and with federal ministers in my FPT tables. Every time, I raise the issue of needing more business supports for Northwest Territories businesses, that we do fall through the cracks, and that the majority of our businesses are small businesses, which are already having economic uncertainty prior to COVID. Yes, we always look for more funding. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would believe that has to do with just the sheer size of the Department of Infrastructure and the number of assets that we do manage. We have a lot of the GNWT buildings for other client departments. We have the roads. We have airports. Everything sort of tangible or a lot of tangible things fall under the Department of Infrastructure compared to, say, Finance, which maybe doesn't have as much brick and mortar as we do. Thank you.