David Ramsay

Not to belabour it much longer, but again, the committee was under the understanding that there is a substantial amount of money there. Again, for the pent-up demand that was out there with tourism operators here in the Northwest Territories…. Obviously, something changed somewhere.

The money is not there, like it was supposed to be there. We’re just finding out about it through a supplementary appropriation — that the briefing we had with the Minister six weeks ago wasn’t what it seemed. I don’t know if…. It wasn’t communicated to committee, not to my knowledge; I could be mistaken. But I’m...

Mr. Chairman, I guess that part of the onus on getting the briefing and getting it before committee was because there was a pent-up demand out there amongst operators to access some of these dollars, and if now there is only $304,000, I believe the Premier had mentioned, then that causes me some concern. I don’t understand why we couldn’t have more money available for operators wanting to access the Product Diversification Fund.

Mr. Chairman, I just had a couple of questions in regard to the increase — and I guess it was a negotiated increase — to the lease for Aurora College in their current location at Northern United Place. It’s a substantial increase of close to 30 per cent. That is what I calculated. I’m not sure who we’ve got doing the negotiating of leases, but I think we didn’t negotiate a really good deal if we were paying $660,000, and now we’re paying $900,000-and-some. It’s a substantial increase.

I just wanted to put on the record that I think this deal is for five years. And at the end of this five years...

Mr. Speaker, again I thank the Minister for that. But some of that work was done over ten years ago.

I think what we need is an updated, coordinated approach by the government to the communities that I mentioned earlier, so that they could have a coordinated approach, a package to work with industry, to work with the migrant workers to attract them here to live in the Northwest Territories.

I’d like to ask the Minister if he could commit today to looking at ways and means to work with the community to get this type of package, as I mentioned, and type of marketing campaign off the ground so that...

My question today is for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. It gets back again to my statement from earlier today, where I talked again about the migrant worker issue here in the Northwest Territories, with the 3,300 migrant workers and the $350 million every year that leaves the Territory.

In my statement I talked about De Beers Canada. I don’t by any means intend to single out De Beers, but it’s a real-life example. They currently have Edmonton as a point of pickup for employees working at their Snap Lake and Gahcho Kué operations. They not only fly them in from Edmonton, but...

Just a couple of questions on the cost — the $1.5 million to provide funding to cover the new permanent structure to replace the failed Caribou Creek drainage structure. I just wanted to ask a couple of questions.

Do we have some type of warranty or insurance to cover what would appear to be the fault of the engineer or whoever’s fault it is? Why are we paying $1.5 million?

Mr. Chairman, over the past seven, eight years, the Government of the Northwest Territories has spent millions and millions of dollars in the area of electronic health records.

I just wanted to know — and I’m not sure if the Minister of Finance or the Minister of Health and Social Services has this information — who’s in charge of electronic health records and the implementation of all this money that’s being spent in this area? Thank you.

Just really quick, Mr. Chairman: $340,000 — I think that would be taken up quite quickly by applications that were received. Some of the concerns by committee members were that the funding that was available wasn't enough.

I’m having a little bit of trouble understanding why we couldn't flow this money because we didn't have enough applications. I think the applications are out there, and there is a demand out there for the money. I’m having a little bit of trouble understanding that rationale.

I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same, because the last government’s Governance and Economic Development Committee found out about the program through a supplementary appropriation. And here we are in this government…. Being the Chair of EDI, this is the first I’ve heard, through this sup, that the funding is not going to be even what we thought it was going to be in January. So again, it’s in a sup where we find out exactly what’s happening. Like I said, the more things change, the more they stay the same sometimes. I am a bit concerned about that, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I just had a couple of questions following up on Mr. Hawkins’ concern. There was a great deal of interest when the program itself was talked about late in the life of the last government. There was also a rush to get a briefing to our committee earlier on this year. I’m just wondering. The rush was because there was a line up of operators and people out there in the Territory that were waiting to get some of this assistance money. So if we are re-profiling it and putting it off, what money is available today for the operators that were waiting to access this funding?