Robert Hawkins

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’ve explained that I believe this is where one of our serious problems lies. Would the Minister commit to this House to work with the Premier to make sure we get a letter off to Ottawa, whether it be the Prime Minister, one of the infrastructure Ministers, whether it’s the Finance Minister? Personally, I don’t really care who. The fact is we need to make sure we get a letter to one, if not all of them, explaining how important this project is to this Territory. Would the Minister make sure, loud and clear in this House, that he’ll commit that a letter of...

I would just see it as in everyone’s interest if this question was posed to individuals. When I say “individuals,” I mean individual tables, that is, but I would see this question to everyone’s benefit if it is posed individually on their own timetable, that is if they would be interested in advancing their own negotiations. As well as the fact that could the territorial government find a capacity to support this? I would be surprised that there would be very few people not willing to consider this as a viable direction. I would be very surprised if Canada felt this was stalling the process or...

Mr. Speaker, I’d like to know why hasn’t a financial contribution to this project been pursued at our ministerial or Premier level to the federal government, again, to support the cost of this project. Why hasn’t anything been pursued since? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, are there any steps that the Department of Aboriginal Affairs does to ensure that the negotiators aren’t leading the process vis-à-vis they are keeping the process alive as opposed to putting the challenge of bringing negotiations to a close? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Some researchers from famous American universities and large management consulting firms were interested in why public sector projects sometimes fail. They studied 75 major initiatives since World War II and found that three major problems are caused with well-meaning endeavours and it caused them to fail time and time again.

The first problem is known as design free. The project looked great in theory, but when everyone supported it and it moved forward, it certainly was unworkable in the real world.

The second problem was overconfidence. No one took the possibility of...

What stops the Premier, or in this role, the Minister, of putting those questions about finding a comparable path together to accelerate negotiations? Is there anything that stops the Minister from doing this? Thank you.

I appreciate that answer. I’m noticing it a little bit myself. People will start sending large attachments. I mean, we’re starting to see reports. I mean, there’s been discussion by this House. I think this House, the Assembly is trying to lead by example, where we keep more documents in electronic form rather than paper form. Things of that nature, and I see that challenge sort of coming up. I’m just wondering how the TSC is responding to the fact that, you know, I can open up my e-mail any day of the week and there are several attachments of three, four or five megabytes each and, you know...

I know, of course, every fiscal dollar is an important fiscal dollar that we have and it’s important to use it wisely. Has the Department of Public Works considered the potential opening up of the Bellanca Building in the next year, year and a half, to consider it in the context of would it suit their needs as opposed to building a new building for general purpose office space? Has that consideration or discussion happened at all?

I’m not speaking in the sense of I don’t want investment in our territorial economy; I’m just concerned of the market disruption this will play. One of the things the...

In the market disruption study process, Mr. Guy has mentioned it had been done over the last fiscal year. Obviously it’s pretty recent, it sounds. As many people would know, the Bellanca Building is coming to a point here very shortly that it will be empty and I’m just wondering, was that building taken into consideration, knowing that that building will be empty in about a year, year and a half. Was that considered in the market disruption study? Thank you.

How far along is this general purpose office space? How far along is it within the system? Has a particular space -- and when I say “space,” I mean property, obviously -- been identified at this particular time and, if so, how large is that particular space? Thank you.