Michael Miltenberger

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Transportation looks after and is responsible for the highway system in the Northwest Territories. He is responsible. This Cabinet is responsible for addressing the issues of the Members as they are raised in this House. Specifically, the highway issue and the highway inventory will be addressed by the Minister of Transportation as he comes forward with the business plan for the coming year. As we resolve and finalize and move forward with the borrowing limit issue, it will give us the capacity to address this particular circumstance. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Given the Minister’s intimate knowledge of his department, I’ll defer the question to him.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do have a plan for the Northwest Territories. It has been articulated since we have picked the Cabinet and since we set our priorities. One of the major objectives in this Assembly, given the fiscal circumstances that we are in, what happened in the last Assembly as we put all of our pre-capital to take advantage of the stimulus money from the federal government and put out a $1.1 billion capital program over three years is to look at our borrowing limit. Our borrowing limit talks are productive. They are going to result in an increased borrowing limit. The reason...

The money, the last year of the $60 million four-year Energy Fund concludes at the end of March. We do not have the replacement funds for that in place at this point. There are a number of programs that were added to the base but there are a lot of sunsets. The challenge going forward coming when we get to May when the borrowing limit is cleared up and we look at what type of infrastructure investments we want to plan for one of the areas, of course in addition to the red flag capital list, is going to be the whole area of energy.

There are two potential options. I could commit to get the information from the Department of Transportation, or Minister Ramsay will be back tomorrow and ready to appear before the House on Friday. Either way, I can commit to get the information. I don’t have the detail that the Member is asking of me today.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The budget before us has money for highway maintenance. It’s not broken out. I don’t have the specific information for the Highway No. 7 maintenance costs. The capital budget has already been passed and we had a discussion today about the plan of the government as we deal with our borrowing limit to enable us to make key strategic infrastructure investments in the coming months.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I give notice that on February 9, 2012, I will move that Bill 1, An Act to Amend the Borrowing Authorization Act, be read for the first time. Thank you.

We’re open to all suggestions that haven’t been considered in the last 17 years or so, and we will, of course, give them all the consideration they deserve.

As we indicated in our discussions with the mayor last week – a very good discussion – this is fundamentally a municipal issue. There are things that have to be worked out with this condominium corporation. It’s not the position of the government to get involved in those type of circumstances. There are things that have to be done, there are funds that have to be raised, there are debenture votes that have to be taken, there are changes to the condo corporation that have to take place first before anything else can happen. The debate about what can and what should the residents of Northlands...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table three documents, entitled “Interim Appropriation 2012-2012; Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 3, 2011-2012; and Supplementary Estimates (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 2011-2012.”