Tom Beaulieu

I don’t have the expertise to indicate here in the House whether or not that would be a solution, but I would definitely go back to the department and discuss a solution with the deputy minister. If there are areas in addition to that one specific area referred to as Georgetown where flooding occurs at all times and the solution is something just south of our border there in the Yukon, we’ll have discussions with them and maybe be able to resolve that problem this winter. Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, it will be. We will be moving gasoline into communities on the winter road. Thank you.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. We were able to lower the costs by seeing that the fuel that we buy is referred to as fuel at rack prices that came down quite drastically over the last few months. We are anticipating that by the time you get the fuel into the community, it will be at a much lower cost. We are sort of blending at this point and lowering the costs. We do anticipate additional costs for heating fuel when we actually deliver the fuel sometime between the middle of this month and the middle of next month. Thank you.

I do believe that the department feels that they have been assisting with the situation. My understanding is that although the unit that was in jeopardy was moved, the member does not live in that unit so it continues to be in an area where it has flooded or has flooded frequently. We are looking at that now, as I indicated. We do plan to resolve the issue if we can, if we can work in that area and do something with the culvert, as the Member advised. If that is a solution, then we’ll work towards that. Thank you.

The departments of Public Works and Health and Social Services are at the stage when they are determining what design for the type of community. It’s almost like a little bit of a regional centre. In Fort Simpson that health centre can provide some services to the small communities in the immediate area, so the design will be a little more complex than just a community health centre, which is something that is being built in Fort Providence and Fort Resolution next year. I don’t know the letter associated with this particular design, but it would be a design that is something that fits the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The RFP for a planning study for the Fort Simpson Health Centre will be released this month. Thank you.

The petroleum products division will become the fuel services division, so all of the functions at this point where we’re buying fuel from the rack and then delivering and then having distribution at the community level, those costs and then the functions and the positions that are directly associated with those functions of delivering fuel to the communities will be the cost of fuel, and that’s how we will continue to determine the cost of fuel in these communities that we provide fuel services to.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In June 2013, a recommendation came from the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning from the Regular Members. It recommended that Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources be created into a separate department. Cabinet looked at that in May of 2014 and looked at that recommendation and made the decision that we would consolidate one of those functions, well, two of them actually, the energy and the petroleum into Public Works, so that was the reason for us making that move over to creating that division under Public Works and Services.

As the Member is aware, back in 2011-12 we put a bit of a delay on the planning study so that we could complete the planning study for Norman Wells as Norman Wells also provides to sort of a regional health centre. Some of the designs that we get from our consultation in Norman Wells will be incorporated into Fort Simpson. We would also be specific to what the community wants in Fort Simpson, as well, so there is certainly room for consultation from the community.

In Hay River, when we built the health centre, there was opportunity for community input, so this will be the same thing. Fort...

Thank you. More of the consultation portion of the work that Public Works is doing is determining what type of items would be associated with planning studies. We’ve looked at the needs assessment, operational plan, functional program and feasibility analysis for the specific health centre. So that was what the initial meeting with Public Works was about and then from there the decision was made to release the RFP to complete the planning study.