Michael Miltenberger

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We note the Member’s concern and hopefully the proof will be in the pudding here in the not-too-distant future. If we can fill those hundred spots and each spot that is filled is calculated to bring in somewhere in the neighbourhood of potentially three people or a shade more, depending if they’re married and how many children they have, it’s an investment that I think we need to make. Thank you.

No, they are not the same.

We are looking at all those issues, the structural issues, the policy issues, all the things that drive how we’re structured. That’s one big issue. The other issue is enough resources to, in fact, take all those improved structures, infrastructure policy base, and allow us to implement it in a more improved fashion.

Yes, the intent is to look at a six-month timeline. It’s geared to economic immigration where you can go in and reach into the lists that identify people who have the skills, if you need to bring in, to offer employment to. We had a base of 150 spots and we’ve received an additional 100, so we are very keen to get those all filled and operational as soon as possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Regardless of who the successful proponent is or bidder is for the franchise agreement, if it’s not ATCO, then there would be a business negotiation that would hopefully take place in terms of the transfer and selling of the assets, recognizing their assessed value, negotiating whatever other premiums and issues might be dealt with. Failing that, there’s an Arbitration Act, I understand, that would kick in if they reach a stalemate and there’s a need to resolve this issue where there would be binding arbitration.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me just restate, the conditions of this A-based transfer is to provide the functions that we negotiated with the federal government, AANDC, and we’re committed to that. That money is built into our A-base to provide those functions that we’ve taken over that were formerly delivered by the federal government, and we don’t have the latitude to arbitrarily say now that we’re going to start taking that money and doing other things that what we negotiated and signed an agreement on.

The one thing that comes to mind, and I’ll ask the deputy to speak further to this, is things like if you put in a bridge across a river, possibly, I’m not sure of the methodologies there tied to cost of living, inflation and location and those types of things. But I’ll ask the deputy, Mr. Aumond, to speak further. Thank you.

The Member is making assertions that are erroneous. The rates are set by the PUB. There are challenges across the system. We did have a huge rate restructuring in the last government and we continue to work on managing those cost pressures, both in diesel communities as well as in the hydro communities. Thank you.

This report was done in November when the budgets were pretty well set. There was, as well, significant internal review, assessment, debate, discussion going back and forth about what was exactly the best way to proceed. When we finally reached that consensus, we had missed that window. So we identified, as have Members and the public, significant shortcomings in our communications system. So, if this money is not voted on and it doesn’t get approved, it would be about another year to potentially get the resources to work to do the improvements that are needed today. Thank you.

These numbers are set on a methodology that’s negotiated with the UNW, but I’ll ask the deputy to provide more information. Thank you.