Glen Abernethy

I’ll try and do a better job of explaining the math. Currently, we have an outstanding deferred maintenance requirement of $325 million. As I’ve indicated, there are a number of ways for us to get that down. As buildings that have deferred maintenance are taken down and disposed of, the price drops. The main way that we’re getting rid of some of these costs is the continual investment of $5 million in capital annually, and we’re going to have to keep investing in order to bring down the entire $325 million. It’s going to take a bit of time for us to knock down that $325 million through the $5...

Yes, they have been notified of our window, and we have encouraged them to please get us a business plan so we can see the economies of what they are proposing. We have no idea when they are going to get that to us, but we do have limited time before we actually have to finalize the heating system.

The other question with respect to the other two buildings, the answer is yes. If the district system heating comes forward and we accepted and we become a partner, we would be able to tie in all of those buildings.

Yes. We have seen it come down, and I think that’s indicative of the direction that the deferred maintenance will continue to go. There are a number of ways that items could come off the deferred maintenance list. By way of example, we just completed the construction of a new school in Inuvik, and as a result of that new school being completed, we are able to get rid of and demolish both the Samuel Hearne and the SAMS school. As a result, there is a significant amount of deferred maintenance tied up in those buildings. Once they are no longer there, that deferred maintenance is no longer...

Madam Chair, all costs related to the construction of this building, including the demolition of the Tapwe Building and the site remediation, are included in the budget.

Once again the Member and I agree; the government cannot do this ourselves. Fortunately, the private sector businesses presently sell and distribute pellets and pellet fuel in communities where significant market demand exists. In fact, in Yellowknife, if we remember, some of the first pellets systems that the government were involved with were driven by the market in our corrections facilities.

The private enterprise is a valuable partner in this particular area. They have been a leader in this area and we want to continue to work with them and we’d like to see business continue to push hard...

In that case, we won’t bother re-providing it, but we will get you the current year stuff as soon as we’ve got it completed.

We got the property where the new building is going to be located. It was an empty lot. We did have to tear down a building in the adjacent lot to make the lot that will take up the entire building. The destruction or demolition of the Tapwe Building, I believe it is called, is included in this entire budget cost. The demolition of the church that was there previously, that wasn’t a government cost. We…(inaudible)…

Madam Chair, the facts that the Member has just read out are consistent with the report that we provided. We agree with the Member completely. The challenge and the reason we are not pursuing changing over any of our current facilities to biomass at this time, is in the 16 communities that we are the provider of petroleum products, there isn’t actually demand for pellets now.

I know the obvious argument is, well, if you bring it, they will provide or they will utilize it, but in the meantime we would have facilities and structures that are sitting unused; whereas right now we have significant...

We will. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The completion date is April 2015, and we expect to start moving people in shortly thereafter. The project is gone out for RFP, a contractor has been selected and the contract has been awarded. Total contract construction costs, including all design and tenant improvements, is $25.143 million, which works out to about a square foot cost of about $378.66 per square foot. Keeping in mind that this does include tenant improvements and specific stuff for whichever departments happen to be going in there. If you take out the tenant improvements, the total cost is around $20...