Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’ve appreciated the considerable debate we’ve had on this project. I’ve been collecting points and am still equivocal on this, and I’ll be listening closely for the rest of the debate. I am convinced that there’s value in doing this building the way it’s proposed. The $39 million in premium that we’d save is substantial, and I’m very, very cognizant of the need for infrastructure dollars. This is almost $2 million a year. There’s so much that we could do with that money.

There’s also the vacancy issue and market study business. Again, I’m not convinced that 7 per cent or...

That is good to hear. Perhaps it would be the Minister of Public Works and Services…. I don’t know, but could I hear some better definition of “accelerated rate” than just leaving it completely open?

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to follow up on my first line of questioning, for which I benefited from the questions and responses from my colleagues and the Ministers involved. Given the expected completion date of the education plan — two weeks from today, as we have heard twice from the Minister of Education — and given that Public Works and Services is ready to start their planning right away, as we’ve heard from Mr. Aumond, and assuming that there will be some obvious renos that could be done that are either not affected or minimally affected by the education plan, can we at least assume...

Thank you for the reminder of that earlier discussion. My impression is that the renovation would go on over the course of several years, perhaps three or more, and that they would be a fairly large suite of things given the state of the school, some of which would involve, you know, a thorough marriage between the physical maintenance of the building or renovation and the education plan but some of which surely would not. So I would like to ask a little more specifically: are there some significant renovations outside of that which would require an education plan that could be done and for...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to go back to the school in Hay River, Diamond Jenness school, which has had its major work postponed by two years. I understand there is some deferred maintenance work to be aimed at this school in the interim. I am also aware that there was a considerable amount of work done to assess the situation with the school starting at least in 2003 with reports in 2006 and later. Originally the substantial amount of work was to be scheduled for 2009–2010. That was what we’d sort of agreed on last year. I’m wondering what work is being planned for making sure that...

Thanks.

I am just looking at some numbers, which I’m not going to cite, that were provided, I believe, by the Ministers involved here and that indicate substantive work is not really scheduled to start until ’11–12. Perhaps I could say: can we expect that given the conditions that I’ve stated, the degree of work scheduled for ’11–12 could actually be done in 2010–2011?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to say first off that I’m surprised, because I know my colleague also drove the Dettah Road. I’m surprised that Mr. Yakeleya didn’t mention how rough, how very rough, the Dettah Road is. It’s short; it should be easy to fix.

Fundamentally, Mr. Chair, I do want to support this motion. I’ve also driven Highway No. 5. The Highway No. 7 closure really highlighted the critical nature of that situation, especially at the peak of the tourist and resupply season. Of course, we know Highway No. 6 is also in need of attention.

I just want to speak very briefly to say that...

The second thing I wanted to follow up on was — let’s put it this way — the potential increasing conflict we have with the resolution of self-governance negotiations: MLAs that may end up being in a difficult position of basically serving two governments, one officially and one unofficially, when they are beneficiaries of those governments. I’m not levying accusations here or anything. I’m trying to highlight what’s potentially a new and increasing situation we have here.

To me, even a letter of recommendation from an individual — in this case our Premier, who was a beneficiary of the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to follow up on a couple of things. First of all, Mr. Aumond, in responding to Mrs. Groenewegen, referred to a clause in the contract that was attached to the letter of award that states that the funds and go-aheads were pending approval or appropriation of funds by the House. I don’t recall seeing a reference to that, actually, or the attachment to that letter of award. Was that a draft contract that was attached, or was something specific there that we could see?