Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my Member’s statement, my question today is for the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation. Mr. Speaker, as I stated, there have been lots of less-than-good behaviour on the part of the Cabinet and the Housing Corporation in the way they have dealt with this. Mr. Speaker, I think that exempting BIP, exempting themselves from their own policy, requires a justification. We still have not been provided with any evidence that proves that to us. We still do not have any documents, although the Ministers have promised for the last week or so.

Second of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I move that we report progress.

Mr. Speaker, where there is a major contract…Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a short comment to close the debate. I appreciate the Members' comments. I just wanted to add that this goes back to…Having been here for five years, I guess not everybody shares my view, but I have gained a healthy dose of skepticism and cynicism in the way the information is provided to us. Mr. Chairman, I don't mean any disrespect to any of the staff or accountants. Accountants balance numbers. They make sure that what goes on the left side goes on the right side. Ministers are the ones who set the priorities, and I think under the consensus government...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am presenting this motion because I do believe that we cannot be at 12 percent where we are losing money for having the corporate tax at that rate. I do believe that 13 percent will allow us to break even and possibly a little more. I do understand that our government is in fiscal restraint but, as I have stated, I don’t believe that we have an opportunity to go through our final situation to the detail where we could prioritize. I do believe that 13 percent will give us extra money, but 14 percent would take us to a two percent increase. That is higher than I...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Actually the question that I had in my mind, and that I had before Mr. Ramsay started asking, is the same one as his, but seeing as I am an experienced Member, I noticed that it is mentioned again in the Minister’s opening statement, which we can ask questions on. It is on page 2 of 2 of the Minister’s opening statement. It speaks to the revenues that we would get from changes in the corporate tax rate. It says that the increase from 12 to 14 percent would raise $8 million in 2004-05, but an extra $12 million in revenue at the 12 percent would lose $12.8 million on...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Before I do my general comments I would like to pose a question to the Minister first. These questions were asked before, but I wasn’t clear about the answers. We know that the corporate tax was reduced in the last Assembly. Could I just get confirmation as to whether or not it went from 14 percent to 12 percent, or did it go from 13 percent to 12 percent? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am looking at these numbers here and it says $35,000 for salaries and benefits for the administrator. I don’t think you can hire anybody for $35,000 full time. So I want to know if it’s a part-time position. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate all the things that he's trying to do, but I would like to concentrate on the issue at hand, Mr. Speaker. The issue is that there is plenty of evidence that suggests that giving this contract and keeping this contract in the North would create jobs and it would have major spin-offs in terms of using our electricians, our plumbers, our local labour to do the painting, taping and siding, instead of watching these 20 mobile homes fly in and get plunked in our communities. We have a real opportunity for our local people to work in them and make money at them...

One further question to the Minister of Health. I would have thought that we were doing those immunizations anyway, and we were paying that out of our health budget I would think. I don’t think anybody in the Territories pays for immunizations, especially babies. Unless I am wrong, I am assuming that they have been getting that treatment anyway. So would this not be a little bit of extra help we are getting to our health budget from the federal government? Thank you.