Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, Ms. Lee is correct. It is for our employees. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I'll have to apologize if I don't get all three responses to his questions. I believe there were three. The first one is the lease is in effect until August 2008, with two further options to extend by one year to 2010.

In regards to the improvements to the facility, once we are concluded with the use of that facility, we would not return it back to its original state. We end up leaving the upgrades that were done.

I have to apologize; I missed the second question.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, there are discussions still going on in this area as to what avenue we would take. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I guess just before I get into it, a word of caution about wage parity with our unions. One of the things we look at with forced growth, wages are a part of it, but there’s a whole number of factors that come into this area and as we have setting up this criteria, we’ve just done this for this 2006 business plan process and we can look at going into the next business plan cycle to look at this criteria and seeing how other organizations may fit into this as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess what I could say at this point would provide little comfort to the Member in what we’re doing with the request for this funding to be spent in this area, and he raises a lot of valid points and concerns about that level of service. Many of them, which would use as well when we have to ship a lot of our patients out of the territory because we can’t provide a level of service that is found in the larger centres across Canada. It’s unfortunately a fact of life in a lot of places. In the smaller places you go to, the level of service isn’t the same as in the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, this area here, there was a fair bit of back and forth with the Department of Public Works and Services and Municipal and Community Affairs as well as the contractor in the community, as to who would have to cover these costs and what was required. It got to the point where we just had to proceed with the repairs. As the Member stated, when he had an opportunity to visit in the community to see the state of it, it was not a satisfactory state. At some point, injury could be the result. So it was felt, at that point, that we just had to proceed with the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the area that was raised earlier about the third-party accountability framework, what we’ve done in the Financial Management Board, trying to deal with the concerns about forced growth in some of these areas, as we established third-party funding criteria and established the three categories. The first category involves those agencies or boards that are legislatively mandated for the provision of core public programs and services. So that would be the first area that we would look at. As well in that area we look at cost elements that are highly defined...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, for the details of this change, maybe we can go to Minister Miltenberger on that. But it is common practice for the government, when it does lease facilities to make changes to those facilities for our own requirements, that we fund those changes. This particular amount that’s allocated and requested is also being covered off by the agreement with the federal government, but for more details on the specific case, Minister Miltenberger could probably provide some more detail.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In this area here where the contamination was found when the swimming pool was being taken down, there are additional remediation costs that will likely occur in the springtime, so the total costs are unknown at this point. This is the initial piece. Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.