Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question today is to the Premier in his responsibility as the Minister responsible for the NWT Power Corporation. It is with regard to the oil spill at the Jackfish plant.

Mr. Speaker, in the newspaper on October 8th, the story was covered. The Minister indicated that, because of less usage of the plant with the Bluefish plant being more operational, there has been less need for 24-hour supervision or there has been some cut. It is a cost-cutting measure. The Premier questioned whether or not having more people there would have prevented it. I think...

Thank you. I’d like to have some more information on that because it sounds to me like this is an ongoing program and why is it that this was not in the budget to start with? Why did that happen? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My apologies; I mixed up two different items there. For Yellowknife air terminal building I’m just not sure why the money was spent in this way in that we have been aware since the September 11th attack that there have been lots of requirements being imposed on various airports, the Yellowknife Airport being one of them, to upgrade their facilities and baggage areas and better security and such. I’d like to know why it is that this was not incorporated into a main transportation budget and what transpired that required this to be spent, the money to be allocated in this...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to be clear, I just want to make sure. I would like to have confirmation from the Minister that this doesn’t have anything to do with the 22 mobile homes we bought to encourage the markets in communities so that employees who come up north to work could have places where they pay their own rent. I just want confirmation that this doesn’t have anything to do with that program. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. May I just ask the Minister as to whether this is a yearly increase or is it something that comes periodically? How often does the commission review the salary of judges? Thank you.

Thank you. I think it's open to debate whether or not there were any other spaces, but for now, Mr. Chairman, I just want to concentrate on this item in front of us, $115,000 for a lease improvement that was approved on August 22nd. What I'm gathering from what the Minister is saying is that this amount was approved in advance without knowing the details. It's an approximation of what it would cost to do lease improvements to make the space suitable for the office. Would the Minister say that there's a very good possibility that we may need more money to improve, especially given that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand, from the information, $350,000 of $855,000 is being used for office renovations, but I still don’t have the information on the remainder of that $855,000. Could the Minister provide that, please? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With all due respect to all the people who are waiting in line for Legal Aid lawyers, we know this has been an ongoing thing for many years. We know the current practice is anything the Legal Aid clinic cannot handle, they get farmed off to private lawyers. That’s how this gets done. It’s quite troubling that something like this is done by way of a special warrant which really ties the hands of the members here because once this has been allocated, there is nothing we can do about it and $115,000 is gone. I have a problem with that and I believe the use of special...

Well, that is a lot of information. I appreciate that we went through this yesterday, but there were some remaining questions. We are still not clear exactly as to how it is the case that this budget for fuel and power has been underestimated by almost $1 million each year. For example, it says here that the Minister said that the department was aware that the new facility would cost more and that something like ventilation, it seems like the turnover had to be 13 times or whatever. This is not new science. I am sure there is an industry standard that they had to work with that would tell...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That’s all of my questions.