Robert Bouchard

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise today to discuss an issue that I’ve brought up in the House before. It’s a priority of the Assembly to do decentralization, to put jobs out in the regions from a priority of this Assembly when we started. Now I’m going to be questioning Cabinet and the Premier today about how and the timing of this.

Mr. Speaker, you well know that this session is very short before we go into the summer break, but then when we come back in September we’ll be looking at business plans of departments of how these departments are going to be run and operate over the next year. In that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to waive Rule 69 (2) and have Bill 26, An Act to Amend the Elections and Plebiscites Act, moved into Committee of the Whole.

---Unanimous consent granted

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be voting in favour of this motion. It does bode a lot of questions and brings up a lot of issues we have with medical travel. Obviously, there are a lot of financial pressures with medical travel. The budgets are growing on a steady basis and this would include some more pressure to that. One of the things I indicated on why I would support this is if it was done on a hardship basis. People would have to prove that there’s a need. There has to be a hardship. I wouldn’t want to see us doing this with every medical travel situation, but if families or people or...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess the question is about that renovation and the $785,000. Would that not be better spent to be invested into a newer building, into a newer facility, along with some of the costs associated that we currently have in leasing? Is the department looking at that as an option as well?

The Minister indicated the refurbishing of the current medical clinic. I guess my concerns and questions are: Do we have an estimated cost of what that refurbishing is to an older building, and would those dollars be better spent adding to the new facility so that we have office space right in the location as opposed to renovating an old building?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you as well as most of the Members here know, there’s an exciting project going on in Hay River right now: the building of the new health centre there. This exciting new facility will be up and running next fall. They indicate they’re on budget and on schedule, and the community is abuzz with some of the activity of that construction. There are many people in the community and some specialized workers coming into town.

Obviously, some of these big projects cause other issues and bring concerns. Some of our local businesses would like more activity and more opportunity...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Kam Lake, that Bill 26, An Act to Amend the Elections and Plebiscites Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Obviously, the fall of 2015 is when the new facility is going to be established. I guess the question is: When will the general plan for this office space be released and the report completed so that we actually have a plan in place before the close of the fall of 2015?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I indicated, the new health centre definitely has some issues and some questions. My questions today will be for the Minister of Public Works and Services.

The question is: What is the department doing to address the office space that is not currently planned for the new facility?

Thank you, Madam Chair. I will follow in the same line of questioning. In that percentage of carry-overs, do we have some goals set? Is it expected that as we get longer in the tooth about the process of approving infrastructure in the fall moving forward for next year that we will get down to a lower threshold, like down to 15 percent let’s say? Is there a goal to do more of that in the future, to drop that number even more?