Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Am I going first here?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  My comments before.... I don't have a position on this. The association has not discussed this issue specifically. We're a non-partisan organization and we're in a non-partisan jurisdiction, so we try to stay out of these debates. I'm not saying I'm for or against the carbon tax or pollution pricing, whichever way you want to say it.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There has been some commentary from trucking companies about the additional costs that the carbon tax will bring. Generally, costs here are already very high. People in businesses know they need to be efficient. I guess the carbon tax is going to further incentivize efficiencies.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Maybe you could talk to the Chamber of Mines. They may know better than I would the full impacts of that. If there's any way the federal government can let people here make the decisions about what to do with the natural resources here, that's probably a better way to go for everyone.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  This has not been my experience in Yellowknife. Yellowknife would be a lot like Alberta in terms of people having a fee simple title. I don't know as much about the real estate situation in smaller communities, but yes, there is a lot more public housing and a lot of overcrowded housing.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't know a lot about how it might have changed recently, but we did just have someone with the federal government doing a presentation on procurement here during Small Business Week, and we're going to work with them any way we can to make sure their opportunities are getting in front of the estimators and the people who are putting in bids.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't have exact numbers for that, but if they're not local, then you're flying people in and finding a place for them to stay. That is going to cost money for a project if you have to keep them for years while the project happens. It would be a lot cheaper if the person already lived there.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think people sometimes have that stereotype in mind that people don't want to live here. There are 20,000 people here in Yellowknife. We have a pretty good quality of life. The issues are in the smaller surrounding communities, where there is that large infrastructure gap. I don't think anything you're going to do will compare to just building out the core infrastructure that's needed.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  —create a huge deficit, but it needs to be done.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There are housing maintenance trades here. If you went in and built what you needed to build in these communities, you don't need to figure this out for yourself. The GNWT has already. It has a long list of projects. It's not a matter of what to do, but what to do first. Work with the local governments here, or just fund them directly, so they can pursue these capital projects.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't know enough about the program to speak to that. I know there continues to be a deficit in infrastructure funding at the community level. The governments of the Northwest Territories did a report in 2014 on the funding they provide to communities for basic infrastructure and they found that the communities in the Northwest Territories are underfunded by $40 million a year, and that goes on every year.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Good afternoon. Thank you for the invitation to address this committee. My name is Matt Belliveau. I am the executive director for the NWT and Nunavut Construction Association. The association was established in the Northwest Territories in 1976 and expanded to include Nunavut in 2012.