Bob Bromley

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I also have raised this and I raise it again here. I recognize that we’re within the general guidelines of other jurisdictions and so on, but the large capital projects don’t seem to fall into that formula of coming up with a percentage. Those are mostly operational dollars. We know that we have, relatively, a very high cost for infrastructure compared to other jurisdictions.

Another perspective on this is that because we have a modest size of population and availability of these very specialized talents, we often have to contract outside of the Northwest Territories for...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just before we conclude this, I wonder if I could slip in a question on the major projects area and where they are for the focus on the deferred maintenance program.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe I’ve raised this before, but I do have concerns about the high costs of our data management systems, which seem to involve very large capital costs. If I’m correct that it’s flowing in this department, technology service centre — oh, sorry; I had that wrong. That would be under the Department of Public Works and Services. I’ll hold the question until then.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My final question, and thanks again to the Minister for those comments. I’m glad to see we’re being progressive here. Some of the technology out there is pretty new and perhaps a little bit untried in the North.

I think it’s great we’re starting to test those systems and so on, but an important aspect of that is establishing a monitoring program on them to make sure we know how much the gain is and what the full benefit is to us with our dollars and to the public. Is there a program to ensure that some monitoring, especially on the relatively new technologies out there...

Thank you to the Minister for that commitment. I hope he shares it publicly in the House with us, because, again, I know the public would be very interested indeed.

Another question I had. One of the bottlenecks I think our public experiences is the installation and services for these new appliances. It’s often very difficult to find somebody in a timely way. We don’t have homegrown expertise here. Is the Minister working with Aurora College and other arms of government to try to get some progressive educational programs going to ensure that we have in all our communities expert renewable...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to express my appreciation to all the partners who are working to put this initiative together, and I want to thank the Minister and staff of the Department of Transportation for whatever they can provide in assistance to help it come to a successful end. Mahsi.

Thank you, Minister, for those remarks. Often at the hospital, in the emergency rooms there, because the way locks are on the doors and so on, it can lead to very dangerous situations for the medical staff. I am assuming all that is being addressed in the design of this space. Is that correct?

I recognize the points the Minister has raised. Often these dollars are so large that I wonder. A lot of data management now gets outsourced to other countries, even other continents. I would ask that the Minister always look for opportunities to hire people locally and deal with some of this information manually. Given that we often are dealing with relatively modest sample sizes and the numbers to actually deal with it, we perhaps don’t need these Cadillac systems for all of those data management needs.

Yes, that’s fine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s actually another couple of pages before I get to it.