Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Department of Public Works and Services is the department that’s been in contact and dealing with the fire marshal’s office. The letter that was sent to one of our senior project managers was dated in January 2006. The fire marshal’s office has been involved for some time before that. It is an unfortunate situation where we are in the position we are. Ultimately, much work has been done, so the department has been dealing with this. It’s not like this is parachuted in and going to take over other projects. On an annual basis every department can put...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It’s not too often I have an opportunity to stand up in this forum and recognize somebody from Inuvik. My new CA that operates out of my Inuvik office, Ms. Jennifer DeBastian.

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Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the process we would follow when it’s an owned asset of our own, whether it’s a school or a health centre or a warehouse, if it is an owned asset we would go down the process of looking at it and we continue to do that, is just replace it with our own capital dollars and continue to own it. The government at one time reviewed the possibilities and actually sold off a number of its owned assets and looked at leasing more space. That’s something we continue to do as we review each situation, is do we do this. Ultimately, what we would have to decide is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the agreements that we have signed as a government to honour our commitments is something we take seriously. We will continue to work with the Tlicho Government and the agency to provide the services that are necessary through that agreement. There are a number of issues, of course, in our operating environment that have to be taken into consideration by all parties. I understand where the Member is coming from with the work with the elders, respecting the arrangements that were made in the past with them, and I have committed that we will try to work...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, if we do not show a plan to repair the immediate requirements that we’ve been instructed to do, then the occupancy, we could be terminated as early as this summer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think we can find in the past where we have, through this process, established capital programs whether it be renovation or replacement because of timelines and urgency if we had a failure in a facility would come through this process. Why can’t we go for office space leases at this point? We would need the authority of this House. We can’t just go out for space at this time for a lease. Right now we’re in an owned facility and to change that direction, again, the department would have to bring it forward and get that approval through the process...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess one of the areas that we are involved with and would continue to support would help any service provider in the Northwest Territories, is the subsidies that were granted by the CRTC for northern operators and long distance calls and operating those facilities. At this time, we have one major provider in the Northwest Territories for hard line services. If there are other companies interested in that, those types of arrangements would only help their operating structures. So the positions we would put forward, yes, in this case would benefit one...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the space occupied by the GNWT users is relatively the same, approximately 320 square metres less would be what we would look at for our current requirement. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand where committee members are feeling those. I’ve mentioned this quite a number of times about the planning, the process, where we find ourselves now, and as I said earlier, ultimately it’s this House that will direct how things are going and the final accountability happens here on the floor. So the Member has mentioned the motion as well as another Member mentioned she’s prepared to move the motion, so I suggest that if that’s the consensus, then let’s get on with the motion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, Public Works and Services is involved in monitoring CRTC hearings throughout Canada to see if in fact there will be impacts on service that's provided in the Northwest Territories, and we will be presenting our case in Whitehorse regarding a number of issues in the Northwest Territories and how our service provider here in the Northwest Territories operates. I'm not in a position to get right into a lot of the detail at this stage. Number one is we'd like to put our position on the table without having other groups who are concerned about the...