Jane Groenewegen

Okay. Thank you. The past week in the House we heard that when a Member of the Cabinet chooses to provide endorsement or a letter of support for a negotiated contract for a capital project in their riding, they will declare a conflict and not participate at the Cabinet or Financial Management Board table on that particular project. That’s what I think we heard. Is that correct?

Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Well, that makes me feel a lot better — only 37,000 square feet.

I think it is incumbent on the government — if they want to spring an office building into the capital plan at the eleventh hour that’s not even in the five year capital plan and want to drop this into the mix basically with no notice — to make very compelling arguments for why they need this money to build this new office building in Inuvik. I think they have failed the test in terms of making that argument. I hear a lot of information, but saying that there isn’t a single location in Inuvik with 37,000...

Was there any other decision made by the Financial Management Board that was signed off?

Mr. Chairman, I have a motion.

Was there a document that went from the FMB to the Cabinet, and who was that signed by?

Somewhere back a few answers I heard somebody say that there was a possibility that some work could possibly be undertaken. I was talking about the phases of the project and where things that need upgrading or retrofitting or changing — if anything could be undertaken while the kids are away the whole summer — to start looking at these things. I had mentioned ’09. I like the answer I got to the ’09 question, because I heard it was possible.

Then when other people started talking about accelerating, it got a little bit wishy-washy there. Let’s just talk about the possibility for ’09. If — and I...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m just having a hard time finding it. Page 7-7? Oh, okay. All right. I’m just looking in the wrong book.

First of all, let me say that Public Works and Services has done a very good job of providing information. We asked for numerous things, which were provided in a very timely manner. Mr. Miltenberger was quoted in Hansard last week as saying that he couldn’t get a list of the subcontractors on the Inuvik schools project until the appropriation had been voted on in the House, and in fact, that list was provided to Members today. So that was very good.

The analysis on...

If it’s going to be completed by the end of October, that gives us — November, December, January, February, March, April, May, June — eight months until the kids are out of school. Obviously, the best time to be doing work on the school is when the students aren’t there, because there are 400 students at Diamond Jenness. I don’t think it’s going to be very easy to find alternative locations for them to be getting their education. Some of this work needs to be done in the summer months when the school is not occupied. It may have to be done in a way where a certain amount of the work is done at...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that we report progress.

Motion carried.

All right. That’s Inuvik, yeah.

Laughter.