Sandy Lee

Just one last question. Mr. Chairman, does the Minister have any information about how much more we would be required to allocate for this litigation? It appears that it’s in a beginning stage, but I think there might be some information there that the Minister is aware of that would suggest that this would go multi-millions more. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. This is another potential liability amount that we are supposed to, I think, put on the books. But reading the explanation for this it’s still quite puzzling, because it is largely, I think, for now anyway, until we know what the outcome of the litigation might be, it really is an accounting exercise to make sure that we have some funds allocated as a potential liability. But I’m just wondering why we have to do this, because it seems to me that the litigation is in such an initial stage, that we really don’t know what the final outcome might be; and why would anything like this...

I’m sorry; I still don’t understand why we had to pay out $2.69 million.

Okay, so it’s page 5 of the schedule.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We could argue about this, but let me tell you the union has a designate, and that designate is not permitted to represent the appellant. I think that is another way of saying that it is a prop. Mr. Speaker, the Minister is not saying this, but I am getting a feeling that there is a process being worked out that may not be agreeable to the union. It is going to be maybe an opinion process that would not involve the employer or the union, it would just be a whole third-party process. Maybe that works for us, but I think the Minister is making a big mistake if he is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my written question is to the Honourable Floyd Roland, Minister responsible for the Financial Management Board.

Please provide the detailed guidelines, policies or regulations that allow for a sole-source/negotiated contract to happen with a party that did not meet the initial RFP criteria for the contract in question.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister should check his facts, because he has provided information to us that suggests that, in fact, they did call the business and say let’s work out a deal. Mr. Minister, I still want to know when they did meet the original criteria, so everything was zero based, so why do you only deal with those who applied for it who didn’t meet the criteria? The third one was late in the first place. That should have been just written off right away, and you should have started right from the beginning. Shouldn’t that be the common, sensible way to do that? I also...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Minister just repeated what I said, which is that the department rewarded the party who did not meet the timeline by giving them a 15-year leasehold contract. Now, I have a problem with that. The second thing is, I resent greatly anybody across the floor saying that when we’re asking questions about the way they’re spending legal aid money that we somehow do not support expansion of the Legal Aid program and I do not appreciate that, Mr. Speaker. I want to tell the Minister and the Cabinet, they know that other NGOs, for example, the Centre for...

…and this decision has to be revisited and reversed, and I demand that this government does a better job.

Mr. Speaker, what kind of operation is the Minister running at DPW? Is the Minister telling us that the rules and regulations allow that the officials from his department can call up anybody and negotiate a sole-source contract for a 15-year lease with whatever business they want? I would like to know how I'd get into that kind of business, Mr. Speaker. How does a person at DPW decide which business he's going to give this 15-year contract to? If the criteria was only that it had to be...

Yes, Mr. Chairman, we do have a comment to offer from the committee on Bill 7.

Mr. Chairman, Bill 7 amends the Legal Profession Act to enable law firms to enable trust monies that lie unclaimed in lawyers’ trust accounts. This bill was developed…Sorry, I am reading the Minister’s statement.

---Laughter

I was supposed to read the pink sheet; sorry.

Mr. Chairman, the Standing Committee on Social Programs conducted its public review of Bill 7, An Act to Amend the Legal Profession Act, on October 12, 2004. The committee would like to thank the NWT Law Society for its presentation, and the Minister and...