Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We will now consider the Department of Infrastructure on page number 7.
Asset management, not previously authorized, $250,000. Are there any questions?
Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Infrastructure, operations, asset management, not previously authorized, $250,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Energy and strategic initiatives, not previously authorized, $2 million. Are there any questions? Seeing none. Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, energy and strategic initiatives, not previously authorized, $2 million. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Total department not previously authorized, $2,550,000. Are there any questions? Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, total department not previously authorized, $2,250,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We will now consider the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs on page number 8. Community operations, not previously authorized, $12,835,000. Are there any questions?
Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, community operations, not previously authorized, $12,835,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Total department, not previously authorized, $12,835,000. Are there any questions?
Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Infrastructure, operations expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, $12,835,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We will now consider the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, page number 9.
Education, not previously authorized, $32,983,000. Are there any questions? To the Member of Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my questions are about the overage on the Mangilaluk School project in Tuktoyaktuk. I just -- it's quite a large overage, and just noting a lot of the concerns that were raised, you know, about the Stanton project and the auditor general report on that one, you know, spoke to our need to control the costs of contracts better, I guess and, you know, this is quite a large overage, so I'd just like to hear a description from the Minister as to how we got here and how we're continuing to improve our contracting and our budgeting and project planning to ensure that these kind of overruns aren't occurring or are minimized. Thank you.
Thank you, Member of Frame Lake. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. This certainly is an unfortunate situation of having a further significant overage but on an asset that is of crucial importance to the community and to young people in the region who attend this school obviously, so it is a project that's several years old now and it was, unfortunately, one that was subject to some delays starting, if I'm not mistaken, prior to COVID and that immediately starts to lead us into a situation where project budgets did face some significant challenges, that things changed quite a bit quite substantially in terms of supplies, supply chains, and the costs of supplies. Adding to it, then, Mr. Chair, there were some issues early on when, if I recall correctly, it was a line, but I believe it was specifically telecommunications line discovered and that put some delay in the project and then, again, other delays resulting from that needing to mitigate and manage COVID-19 situation and ensure that the community remained safe when there would be an expectation of fairly large amount of labour coming in and out of the community in order to perform the contract so -- and then when there's delays, there are inevitably overages. There's losses of time and labour that has to sit idle but then there's a cost to it. So that's some of the explanation but beyond that, Mr. Chair, there were some challenges. We are working with a regional contractor, but they were challenged with some of the subcontractors that they were relying upon.
I can only speak, Mr. Chair, from the point of involvement in the last couple of years where Ministers worked more closely directly with the contractor to ensure that their subcontractors were meeting our needs as well in terms of timing. I can say that that relationship was one that proved important because we were able to work together and to bring in a reputable contractor who could advance this project very quickly and in a way that the community was satisfied and we were satisfied with what we were seeing in terms of changes that started to happen quite quickly and then the construction progress and monitoring that is now moving along as I -- last that I understand quite well and steadily.
So the second part of the question, if I understand correctly, Mr. Chair, was with respect to our longer term, you know, vision and longer term responses to these sorts of things that, you know -- the nature of some of the projects that we do take on does -- they are often large and in remote and small communities, and there can certainly run into some challenges that are distinctly and distinct and, you know, everything from wildfires to just simply the ability to bring supplies in, for example, to communities that were barged communities to becoming to fly-in communities, so those do present some challenges. That said, there is now, and has been over the last couple of years some significant changes done to our procurement, particularly of capital projects so, for example, we've reintroduced a peer review committee to ensure that when a project moves forward, it's been reviewed not only within a department but across the planning groups from across departments. There's an ADM capital working group, so, again, they too provide a second level of overage -- or of coverage to ensure that the planning is done adequately and that the budgeting is done to a level and with a level of rigor that really just takes eyes away, you know, human nature, if you're looking at your own projects sometimes you need to have some objective eyes on it so we've introduced both those processes.
And last but not least, Mr. Chair, we've recently put out a new set of guidelines for capital project planning. It's the first time since 2013 that we have updated those guidelines for staff. They are much simpler to use and are brought up to a modern state.
And last but not least, Mr. Chair, I always like talking about vendor performance management. I have asked the department to look at whether we can expand not only looking at our vendor performance management for delivery of BIP commitments but if that can start to be -- if we can get to a place where we are actually able to put that in place more broadly for quality circumstances and quality monitoring, that is certainly more complicated, it would take a fair bit of change, but at the same time there's certainly -- there may be an opportunity here that is if it's already rolled out and it seems to be working well in it the BIP circumstance, maybe this is an opportunity to expand that more broadly. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, some of these reforms to the way that we're managing contracts, have we considered -- or maybe we already do -- consider looking at previous performance on contracts when awarding subsequent contracts. So if a vendor has gone over budget frequently or if the vendor has gone over budget previously, does that affect their point rating in terms of their being awarded contracts in the future? So what I'm looking for is can we demand accountability not just from ourselves but also from contractors as they bid on contracts.
Thank you to the Member. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there certainly is some ability to do that. You can have a contractor or a subcontractor declared to be -- I'm not -- the word's escaping me, Mr. Chair. But to have them noted so that future procurement does look at them as being -- yeah, and would have that noted on file as being a known contractor with whom there have been problems. That's a fairly significant consideration, fairly significant marking to have (audio) so it would have to be fairly certain. I'd certainly be happy to take it away and see whether there is something more that can be done. I hear the Member's concern. We don't want to have repeat challenges. There was questions on the floor of the House today about a project in your riding that I know we've all been struggling with a bit. So, you know, it's not the first time it's come forward, and I would like to see that we have a solution that, really, it's more that making sure that we're rewarding the good contractors that we know are here in the Northwest Territories and delivering services. So as I say, it does happen, but the specifics of when and how, I think, could perhaps be clearer. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Member from Frame Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I just want to be very clear that, you know, I -- I'm not necessarily suggesting that that needs to be the case with this contract. It's more just ensuring that we've got robust controls around our contracting. Just knowing that, you know, we see costs overruns a lot. And it's important to note that, you know, a lot of the projects that the government does, virtually all of them, are for essential infrastructure, like this, like a school. Like, this is not something that MLAs are going to turn around and say, you know, we're just going to have to cancel this. Because they absolutely need a school in Tuktoyaktuk which means that the government, to a certain extent, is beholden to building it virtually whatever the cost, and that puts us in a really difficult situation, and I think that's part of what has led us to be in this situation where we are constantly frequently going over budget on projects. And so I think we do need to be really careful about ensuring that we have robust controls in place. And also that we're honest with ourselves about budgeting. I mean, if -- you know, I know that we're -- we try our best to learn from previous experiences, but it just seems to me -- I made statements about this in the past, and I'll digress it after this, but, you know, that it does seem to be something that happens quite frequently. We see a lot of supplementary estimates come in, and this one is just, in particular, quite high, and we see a lot of that. And so I think it is our responsibility as public government to do what we can to ensure that we're taking steps to prevent it as much as possible. So I'll leave it at that. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you to the Member. Moving on to the Member of Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Once again, my colleague has asked all the questions that I needed to for that one. Thank you.
Thank you. Moving on. Seeing no further questions, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Education, Culture and Employment, capital investment expenditures, education, not previously authorized, $32,983,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Languages and culture, not previously authorized, $232,000. Are there any questions?
Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Education, Culture and Employment, capital investments expenditures, languages and culture, not previously authorized, $232,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Total department not previously authorized, $32,215,000. Are there any questions?
Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Education, Culture and Employment, capital investments expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, $32,215,000. I'll make a correction to that number. It's $33,215,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. We will now consider Department of Environment and Climate Change on page number 10. Wildfire and forest management, not previously authorized, $437,000. Are there any questions?
Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Environment and Climate Change, capital investments, expenditures, wildlife and forest management, not previously authorized, $437,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Total department, not previously authorized, $437,000. Are there any questions?
Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Environment and Climate Change, capital investments expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, $437,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Committee, we will now consider Department of Finance on page number 11.
Management board secretariat, not previously authorized, $478,000. Are there any questions?
Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Finance, capital investments expenditures, management board secretariat, not previously authorized, $478,000. Does the committee agree?
Agreed.
Thank you, committee. Office of the Chief Information Officer, not previously authorized, $2,903,000. Are there any questions? To the Member from Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. With the $832,000 to increase the appropriation to reflect changes in project timelines for the NWT courts modernization project, so usually if there's delays in a project, then it says that an offsetting amount was lapsed and we're just sort of bringing forward a previous amount that was lapsed, but it doesn't say that in this case. So can the Minister confirm whether or not there were any lapsed amounts as a result of delays or what is the reference to changes in project timelines mean? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, on this one, we -- the project timeline certainly has changed over a bit of time. So previously, when this was approved for a three-year project starting in 2023-2024, it was approved as $1.715 million, and that has become clear, as the project's got underway working with the chief information officer, that this would be insufficient so there's been now an additional amount added to the budget, and it's been approved over four years which has extended the project further, and that is leading to some of the funding that was previously allocated to 2024-2025 moving over to 2025-2026, specifically that's the $832,000. So it's that amount that's aligning with the longer timeline and the somewhat more complicated or somewhat bigger -- not more complicated but the larger budget. Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Minister. To the Member of Yellowknife North.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. So to clarify, this $832,000 is being sort of carried over from 2024-2025 but it wasn't authorized under the 2024-2025 budget? Can the Minister clarify? Thank you.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. Sorry, Mr. Chair, I realize my answer wasn't very clear. So originally, this was a three -- projected to be a three-year project. It is now projected to be a four-year project first, on the firsthand. And secondly, there was an additional amount that was added to the project, not in this supp. But with the addition of the extra year on the project, the original timing of some of when things were being spent has changed. And so originally, the total projected -- the total projected spending now for 2024-2025 is just shy of $200,000 which leaves a balance available of -- for spending on other projects. Some of that went to other IT capital projects because they weren't -- they did have needs in the 2024-2025 year, but there was a balance of $832,000 on this project that can now move forward on to year 2 of 4 for 2024 -- or sorry, for 2025-2026. That's what is being requested here. So take this amount that was not spent in 2024-2025 on this courts modernization project, move that to 2025-2026 which aligns with the needs of the project in this current fiscal year. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. To the Member from Yellowknife North.
Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. So is this the final year in the project, then, or is it year 2 out of 4? Can you -- is this the final amount that it's -- is expected will be needed to finish off this project, or might we expect further supplementary requests in the future? Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. So it is formally in -- we are currently in year 3 of 4. There are some stages that certainly will continue on. So where we are expecting this year is to be in a -- to have the formal contract to a contractor completed and a solution in full design over the coming year. That will be implemented in the -- in sort of late or mid-2026, and then there's -- thereafter in the project, there's training of our own staff to ensure that they can utilize this new system but that is different from the construction, if you will, of the IT system. So for the construction of the IT system, it's our expectation that that will be fully implemented in, say, mid 2026, so just into the next fiscal year. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. To the Member.
Thank you, Mr. Chair. No further questions on that.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Any further questions?
Seeing none, Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures) No. 1, 2025-2026. Department of Finance, capital investments expenditures, Office of the Chief Information Officer, not previously authorized, $2,903,000. Does committee agree?
Agreed.
