Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh said before, it was a great event that we went to yesterday, and a lot of that came as a result of our passing the Protected Areas Act, so anyone who had anything to do with that should be very proud of how it turned out for the folks in Lutselk'e.

To the Member's question, the signed establishment agreement legally binds the GNWT to establish Thaidene Nene. However, protected areas are formally established under the Protected Areas Act by regulation. Site-specific to Thaidene Nene, skeleton regulations have been drafted to establish...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We'll provide the information.

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. Chair. My understanding is that we are still working on the figures. We want to try to be as accurate as possible before we bring those forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have had a conversation with the department about the amount of carry-overs we have within the government's capital estimates, and I think I said when I was before committee that we try to work with all of our Aboriginal partners to try to come up with some of the work made available to them using some of the processes we have, and that might slow our progress down in trying to get some of these projects out the door as quickly as we would like. I think that's the reason we have carry-overs sometimes, is for different reasons, different ways of doing business in the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think the Member's question was in relation to a transmission line to Whati. That would complement the 13-megawatt Lac La Martre hydro project where it was eventually built. Whereas 1.2-megawatt mini-hydro facilities would compound the construction of future 13-megawatt hydro project, a 13-megawatt hydro facility is more cost effective than 1.2-megawatt mini-hydro as per megawatt bases, better serves future growth, and better reduces greenhouse gas emissions than would a mini-hydro facility. I hope that answers some of the Member's questions.