Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. What my point was: I was waiting for an opportunity for all Members to have their general comments. I thought, after that, I would reply to them as a whole. I thought we might have had one or two more Members who were going to make general comments. My apologies if I didn't catch that. I would like an opportunity just to respond to a couple of comments in general before we get into the detail.

This is a huge capital budget. There was some concern with the capacity. Because we are having so much money flow out the door, there will be some concerns with capacity, but we are...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My understanding, and the reason that it is coming forward, is that we are hoping to start some of the work in 2021, this upcoming fiscal year. We have $4.875 million through this process that we are going through allocated for this particular project. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do know that MACA is more than willing to go the communities and work with them on some of the issues that they are facing. I think they are even able to be in a position to provide them some technical advice. To the Member's question, though, my understanding is they are. They can use some of that money to hire themselves a project officer or project manager to help them through that project.

I speak from first-hand experience because, during my time in MACA, I do know there were a couple of projects where the community hired a project officer who did a really nice job...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am not sure. I will have to have those discussions. If there is any kind of opportunity to work with industry that wants to make a profit but, at the same time, provide opportunities for northern people and northern businesses, then we have to work with them. What that consists of, I am not sure at this moment, but I had an idea that this is where this was going. The Member has clearly indicated his non-support of a capital budget of $417,000,000. That is going to provide opportunities and infrastructure for a lot of the communities across the Northwest Territories that...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My apologies to the Member. I didn't quite catch his question but, before we go to him to clarify, we were talking about the carry-overs before. I think we were referring to surpluses, and I do have, across the NWT with all our communities, in the Gas Tax fund, there is about $3.7 million in surplus Gas Tax funding, and in the CPI funding, there is about $12.6 million total in surpluses across communities in the Northwest Territories. So, again, I think that demonstrates clearly that their challenge is not the infrastructure part of it; it's the O and M on the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table the following two documents entitled "Capital Estimates, 2020-2021"; and "Government of the Northwest Territories' Response to Committee Report 19-18(3): Report on the Review of the 2017-2018 Public Accounts of the Government of the Northwest Territories." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As you have heard the last week or so with some of the questions I have been getting from a couple of the Members on our concern with the wildlife running around in the community, we will do what we can. I don't think I will direct my department to have our officers and local offices collecting recyclables. They have other tasks that they need to do which we feel are a priority, especially the safety of the public. What we can do is to try to work with those who may be able to provide that service for us. I'm not sure what the details are yet, and I'm going to be honest about that. I know we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can understand the Member's concern with the use of single-use plastic bags across the Northwest Territories. As Minister of MACA, I went to a lot of waste sites across the Northwest Territories. I've seen all the white plastic bags that were there, and I can assure the Member that we have had some discussions with our federal counterparts and our colleagues from across the country. I believe we have come out with a strategy on single-use plastic bags. I'm not quite familiar with the details right now, but I'd be more than happy to get those and share them with the...

This department does provide a lot of leadership, and this is another one of those cases where we need to work with our partners. In the environment we operate in the Northwest Territories with all our municipal and Indigenous governments and our partners, we need to do what we can to work with our partners to ensure that unilateral decisions are not being made by this Assembly and implemented. I think it's good counsel to work with our partners to try to come up with strategies and plans that are a benefit to all. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Of course, we need to have our conversations with industry. I don't know if the conversations have actually happened yet, at the official level. Again, I would have to confirm that information. I do recognize concern that folks from across the Northwest Territories have about single-use plastic, and I believe it's incumbent on us to try and do what we can to eliminate those across the Northwest Territories