Legislative Assembly briefs
Capital budget offers little for Yk
Laura Busch
Northern News Services
Published Friday, October 18, 2013
SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
It appears few big-ticket capital project are coming to Yellowknife in the next year.
The capital budget outlining how much money the GNWT will spend on infrastructure projects was tabled yesterday by Finance Minister Michael Miltenberger.
While the budget was not released until after press time, Yellowknife MLAs weighed in, saying they are unhappy with a perceived lack of projects in Yellowknife.
Big-ticket needs identified in Yellowknife include a retrofit to Stanton Territorial Hospital, upgrades to schools and improvements or a new building for Aurora College. None of these projects are receiving significant investment in this budget.
"This is a very unbalanced capital budget," said Weledeh MLA Bob Bromley. "The highways are way overrepresented while education, which is our second-largest department and an extremely high priority on which we're failing, is down at three per cent."
Frame Lake MLA Wendy Bisaro called the $3.6
million earmarked for education infrastructure a "paltry amount" during committee of the whole yesterday, saying Yellowknife schools are being left out "for the foreseeable future. J.H. Sissons School is overdue for renovations yet this project has disappeared off the books and renovations to Mildred Hall School have yet to be finished, she said.
The Stanton Territorial Hospital retrofit is expected to cost between $100 million and $400 million. The project received $1-million in funding in 2013/14 and is expected to receive another modest amount of funding in this budget.
Finally, funding for Aurora College retrofits receives no mention.
Miltenberger addressed these issues in Committee of the Whole yesterday, saying people can expect a $20 million investment in the Stanton retrofit in 2014/15. He also said the project is now expected to cost much more than originally thought.
"The retrofit to Stanton is definitely going to be well over $300 million," he said.
"It's going to become the single-biggest infrastructure project in the Northwest Territories when its time comes."
That time could be within the life of this government, but Miltenberger made no promises.
As for Aurora College, people should not expect a new campus in the near future, but it is on the books.
"The Aurora College campus has been noted and will be looked at and at some point in the not-too-distant future, will be the object of a planning study," said Miltenberger.
Look for more details on the 2014-15 capital budget in upcoming editions of Yellowknifer and News/North.
Electoral boundaries debate
It is now up to the legislative assembly to decide
to accept one of three options for re-drawing electoral boundaries in the NWT,
as presented by the Electoral Boundaries Commission - or to reject them altogether and maintain the status quo.
Yellowknife Centre MLA Robert Hawkins told Yellowknifer he is going to suggest rejecting the commission's report.
"From listening to constituents when I knocked on doors this summer in the riding, I received overwhelming guidance and advice that,
in short, states that the majority of people are not happy with any of the recommendations," he stated in an e-mail.
Range Lake MLA Daryl Dolynny does not support maintaining the status quo, but wasn't ready to say whether or not he thinks Yellowknife needs more seats in the assembly.
"It's a very polarizing issue," he said.
"This is a very problematic area and we set this up wrong right from the beginning - we should have made (the commission's recommendations) legally binding.
"Now we're going to take those items to the House and it's going to be politicized to death and there are going to be constitutional challenges and court challenges, because it is what it is."
Why close the only treatment facility?
The closure of the territory's only addictions treatment facility was a hot topic during the assembly's first day back.
Range Lake MLA Daryl Dolynny raised the issue first, asking where the decision to close Nats'ejee K'eh came from.
"There were 67 points that came out of the minister's forum and not one of them talked about the closure of that building - actually, there were four or five points that talked about enhancing or maximizing our infrastructure," he told Yellowknifer.
The decision to cut funding to the centre was "largely to do with what was happening at Nats'ejee K'eh at the time of the elimination of the contract," said Health and Social Services Minister Tom Beaulieu.
Things to watch for
Three major pieces of legislation are expected to be moved to Committee of the Whole for debate this session - and they could receive third reading and be voted for in the assembly before this three-week sitting is complete.
The Wildlife Act, an Act to Amend the Education Act, and an Act to Amend the Liquor Act were each read through by their respective standing committees this week and are now being readied for the legislature.
Also, the bulk of the 17th assembly's strategic plans have been released at the same time.
Look for discussion on these strategies in the areas of anti-poverty plans, early childhood development, education renewal, mineral development and economic opportunities.
How many of these strategies will turn into measurable action within the life of this assembly, which passed its halfway point this week, remains to be seen.
