Sandy Lee

Mr. Speaker, where there is a major contract, like providing 45 homes for two years, the government should first consult with northern contractors to see if anyone can do the job. The government has not done that. In fact, they have been putting off paving the way for northern businesses to discourage them. Mr. Speaker, we have a business right here in the North who could do the job on budget, on time and create jobs in the process, but not only do they not get the benefit of a BIP, they don’t even get the courtesy of prior notice and that is wrong and the government has to change that.

Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It appears that I'm going to have to play the lonely role of a contrarian here. I am not going to support this tax bill either, on the basis of many things that I've said. I do believe that we have had a break from the federal government for $50 million. I do believe it is unreasonable to go from a deficit position of $47 million and the federal government gives us $50 million that we were not expecting, and we go into a surplus of $3 million but still pursue an increase in taxation.

Mr. Chairman, I should state -- I think everybody here understands but I just want...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to speak today about some of the points that are wrong with the way the Housing Corporation is dealing with the purchase of 22 mobile homes.

Mr. Speaker, government should follow its policies like BIP and if it’s going to exempt itself, it should provide justification on a timely basis. Government has not done that. Mr. Speaker, I might point out to you that I am not allowed to buy blank CDs from Wal-Mart out of my office budget even if it’s cheaper to buy from there because they do not fall under the BIP. So why should the Housing Corporation...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to reserve my comments for last, as the mover of the motion. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don’t believe still that I have gotten the confirmation and clarification on what the net return is to our government at 14 percent. I understand, and I have heard this many times, that there are all sorts of factors that go into this and there is never any certainty on the forecast and the assumptions that the government makes to crunch out numbers. We are just fed like lap dogs, whatever they tell us at any given time is what we get.

Limiting the calculations to the assumptions the government made in drafting this paragraph, I am going to narrow it down to this...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to offer some general comments. I can understand, and I appreciate this debate that we are having and I am listening to what the Members are saying. I am a returning Member, but I think from my experience of having sat through four budgets, and argued the points here for the last four years, if it has taught me anything it is that I cannot accept all of the information that the government feeds us at face value. I don’t mean to imply that the Ministers somehow hide their information or anything like that, it is just the fact that our consensus system of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to raise this point. If you look at the budget that we just passed for RWED, there were 489 PYs and we know there has to be some vacancies there, five or 10 percent, which could be up to 40 people. I can’t believe that the department with an $89 million budget and 489 PYs has to get a supp to fund $65,000. Why could they not fund this from within? Is this a case of just allocating the budget to just clear the books from their money from within?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to bring the Minister back to the issue at hand. It's good for the Minister to say I support this, I support that, I support this, but I tell you the people out there expect the Ministers to walk the talk and not just say I support the policy except in this case, without any justification. So I have a very specific question to the Minister. As a Minister responsible for this policy and Minister responsible for job creation, economy and economic development and spin-off benefits, would the Minister support giving maximum opportunity to local businesses and...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could I get some more information on why the Housing Corporation is buying this house and what they are planning to do with this house? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask further questions on the BIP and the waiving of BIP by Cabinet. This time, I would like to ask the questions to the Minister of RWED, the lead Minister, the Minister responsible for this policy. Mr. Speaker, I believe the Minister is well aware of the fact that government has spent a lot of money and concentrated efforts on developing, maintaining and operating this BIP. There is a lot of history to that, there's a lot of justification for this policy, and also RWED is the lead department in promoting, working with and sometimes using a lot of...