Bob Bromley

Mr. Speaker, I too am very concerned about the high cost of power in our small communities.

I think I have a record of dedicating a lot of my time, personal energy and interest in working with small communities to try to address this issue in creative ways.

Currently, we do subsidize residential and commercial use of power in all our communities, diesel-generated communities especially, to the rate of the first 700 kilowatt-hours per month, and so on, for residents.

I believe that the average residential use remains at or below that figure, and in fact, energy efficiency has helped residents to...

Mr. Speaker, my understanding is that the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation does not have the financial ability to respond should they be called upon by the banks for recovery of the loan for any reason and that the Government of the Northwest Territories would be the responsible party financially to the banks. I believe that’s a portion of Mrs. Groenewegen’s point of order. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, instruments, schedules, declarations, call them what you will: this House would like to see those before they are signed, rather than after.

I’m asking the Premier: will he provide those for our review before they are signed? Thank you very much.

Thank you, again, to the Minister.

Just a last question here. If the department has recently worked with a company on other contracts, even — and perhaps especially — if it’s a southern contractor, would that contractor be given preference in bidding for new work or in a competition for new work? Would the department favour that company just because they’ve been working with them recently?

Mr. Speaker, there have been serious concerns raised to me by my constituents about contracting by MACA. I’d like to, without being specific to the project or anything — although it may be, theoretically — explore the policy of the department.

Let’s see. How to put this? Taking as an example a bundled water treatment call for proposal — a very large contract, obviously — does MACA have a policy to support Northern contractors over southern contractors when the Northern contract bid is competitive or the low bid and they have a proven track record? Of course, their Northern residency would be...

No further supplementaries.

I see we have an expenditure plan for a lightning location system. At this time of fiscal restraint, I’m wondering if there is justification for that, what exactly it is, do we already have one in place, is this a replacement one, and what is to be gained by this?

Nothing further, thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I have just received a press release regarding the successful completion of fundraising by our N.W.T. Host Society for the Arctic Winter Games 2008.

This was no mean feat. Initially estimated at $2.6 million, the target was soon reviewed more realistically and re-established at $3.6 million. In the final outcome, including cash and gifts in kind and with a few surprise costs, a little over $4 million has been raised.

As an example of the cost surprises encountered, school washrooms were found unable to handle the shower requirements of 2,000 in-school residents. ATCO then stepped...

Again, the information that might help on this motion would be: Is there a system that’s up and running quite capably right now? Where are the efficiencies? Presumably, if you know where a fire is, you can get to it earlier before it gets large, put it out, and save a lot of dollars. We haven’t heard that sort of information. I’m just trying to think of things that would help me decide on this.