Michael Miltenberger

There is an arrangement with the federal government where we can put in for payments for every 10 kilometres completed, and the arrangement is quite timely. There is a two to three week turnaround. The $40 million will only be drawn down based on progress, so for every 10 kilometres we’ll go back and we’ll get a payment. I’ll get the deputy minister just to reiterate for us the percentage. The majority of the money that’s going to be coming forward, at least 60 percent will be coming from the federal government. But with your agreement, Mr. Chair, I would ask the deputy minister to speak to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The comments that we made yesterday in response to the concerns raised by Ms. Bisaro I’ll let stand so we don’t take up too much needless space in Hansard and chew people’s cabbage twice.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have with me the deputy minister of Finance, Mike Aumond; deputy minister of the Department of Transportation, Russ Neudorf; and the director of the Management Board Secretariat for Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It’s new money. Thank you.

I’d like to add a bit more information before we get to that conclusion the Member has made.

It takes time for departments to address issues that arise from an audit. For example, all the recommendations from 2011-12 audits are now complete, while only 62 percent of the recommendations of the 2012-13 audits are currently considered complete. These things take time. Some of them are more complex and stretch out a little bit longer.

Audit reports, recommendations and follow-up are internal management documents. In that regard, the GNWT follows a standard set out by the Institute of Internal...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There have been the required discussions about the issue that the Member raises, and if the money is not voted on or approved, then the department will be having to absorb those costs from their existing budget. But it’s clear to all parties here that this is not the process that we have laid out to be followed. We have the issues before the House that have been identified by the Members and it’s been dealt with entirely within the government and now we’re here having judgment passed on this request. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The audit committee approved 12 audit projects in 2013-14 based on the audit risk assessment methodology which is used to identify or determine systemic risks inherent in government programs and services associated with governance framework, internal audits and…(inaudible)… independent oversights. Eight of the approved 12 projects were assessed as being ready for audit by the Audit Bureau in 2013. Four of the proposed 12 projects were deferred based on management feedback. In some cases, new business processes were being designed and that required time to be implemented...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to assure the Member here, Ms. Bisaro, that we’re fully invested in the process of consensus government. I can tell you that the last six months I have felt at times like she says she is feeling now, is day after day that we would be constantly bombarded with rising costs with all the fires and the impact and the huge amount of territory that was burned and the communities that were at risk and knowing that we had to spend the money. So we did that. I said at the time, this is not the time to argue about money. It’s not the time to worry about where the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have built this project into our fiscal framework. We’ve built the $40 million into the current fiscal framework and we can manage our way through this. There is a four-year contract. The first three years are where the bulk of the work is done. Embankment construction is the key piece. The first year got off to a slower start than was anticipated just because of the logistics of bringing in many, many millions of dollars of brand new equipment and getting the manpower up and running, the systems working and everybody doing business. It’s accelerated only insofar as...

The issue of pressing and why we did what we did, I mention to the Members that when you’re in their chair and responsible for, as the government, dealing with the issue of cost of living, forest fires, unexpected expenses like this and very many other urgent fiscal balls you have in the air that, yes, things do become pressing, and they become pressing in the context that I just laid out, and they require a timely response.

I appreciate, once again, that Members don’t think we subscribe fully enough to the protocols that we’ve agreed to. I’m saying that we had touched the bases we needed to...