David Ramsay

I’ve got one second left to come back and ask the Minister. He didn’t answer the question. I’m not sure if he heard the question, but where exactly is a dedicated stand-alone college campus for Yellowknife, the capital city of the Northwest Territories? Where is that in the government’s plans today? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You know, I’m not an expert in heavy equipment by any stretch of imagination. It’s not like when you look at trucks and vehicles that you drive on the street. Every model year those can change quite a bit as time progresses, but with loaders and graders and dump trucks, I think the mechanical aspects of those vehicles don’t change very much. Again, I stand to be corrected, but if we’ve got a dump truck or grader or loader that’s three or four years old and we paid 30 per cent of the cost that shows up here and it serves the exact same purpose as a new one would, why...

Again, I think those are discussions that should happen. If there are enhancements there that the town wants specific to that new school or schools, they should be coming to the plate with some dollars to get that done.

The other thing I wanted to mention here, in terms of capital acquisition, is the three new pieces of equipment for Fort Smith and for Aurora College. I’m just wondering: why is it that we’re buying new pieces of equipment for the college? Wouldn’t we at least look at second-hand equipment, Mr. Chairman? Why does it have to be new?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just wanted to add a few comments to the discussion. I’ve got a few questions as well.

Like many other Members, I’m supportive of the Inuvik school replacement. I have been for a number of years now, since the roof collapsed in 2004, and there’s a need there to replace that piece of infrastructure.

The interesting thing for me, though, is that if it was in the private sector and they needed to replace a piece of infrastructure like this — it’s a big building — it’d be done in the most timely, cost efficient, effective manner possible. What I’m seeing with this project...

I didn’t hear an answer on whether or not other locations in Alberta or even…. I’m not sure; maybe the Minister could let us know. What other agreements do we have with health authorities in southern Canada to look after our patients? Are there other options? There are going to be huge demands on Capital Health in Edmonton. If their rooms are full, we need to be looking after our patients, and we have to ensure that this type of scenario is never allowed to play itself out again. So will the Minister answer that question?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to follow up on some questions a colleague, Mr. Hawkins, had earlier in regard to a patient who was medevacked to Edmonton and who, in fact, is a constituent of mine. I’m going to ask some questions today. I want to try to get a better understanding of what happened and why it is that the government and the Department of Health would send a patient who had a stroke to a facility if they knew there were no rooms there for that patient. The answer that Ms. Lee provided to Mr. Hawkins yesterday wasn’t clear enough for me. Could she explain why they would knowingly...

I know we’ve helped out other jurisdictions in terms of policy development, because they’re new into the game, into the diamond business. Will the Minister provide us, whether it’s the House or the EDI committee, with the submission that the government gave to this feasibility study group? At any time was it suggested that a diamond bourse, or diamond exchange, should be located in the diamond capital of North America? That’s here in Yellowknife, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask some questions today of the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, and it gets back to my Member’s statement where I was talking about the government’s support to the diamond industry and the value added industry here in the Northwest Territories.

It seems to me that the 14th Legislative Assembly — some of my colleagues in this room were Members at that time — was very supportive of diamonds in the Northwest Territories and what they meant. But for some reason the 15th Legislative Assembly dropped the ball on diamonds. They did away with the diamond...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I think the department should be looking at, you know, whether it’s two, three or four year old equipment, if it’s almost identical to what the new equipment would be at a fraction of the price, I think they should be doing that just as a matter of business. You know, you should be looking at trying to get the most for the dollars that you do have.

The other question that I have — and I ask this every year; I’ve been here for five years, and I ask the same question every year — is: where exactly is the dedicated Aurora College campus in Yellowknife? Where does...

I thank both Ministers for that. You know, when we’re talking about training folks for jobs in the mining industry here in the Northwest Territories, I wonder if any thought was given to approaching industry to try to get them to help with the capital purchase of this equipment so our people could get trained. Did any discussion take place with industry to help offset some of these costs for these three new pieces of equipment?