Floyd Roland

As to the work, there have been ongoing meetings between the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, the consultant they’ve hired, as well as the District Education Council and the authority, along with other parties within the community, about the work that is progressing. For the actual detail I can have Minister Lafferty, as the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment…. Maybe he’ll give more detail than I can provide at this time.

Mr. Speaker, the deadline of December 31st was in place. The loan guarantee was put in place, with our government backstopping that loan guarantee with TD Bank — TD Securities, to be correct.

They had a 30-day provision before calling that loan. The concession agreement, as I was informed by department officials, also had a 30-day provision built into it. That's what we were waiting for, to see if the bridge corporation would come up with the equity and come up with a lending agreement and all of the pieces that needed to be put in place for this to proceed.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t have that detail with me. That could be a reality, but I don’t know if the Minister of Justice has that level of detail with him now.

The Member is right. When this facility was being constructed, there was quite a concern about the cost, and cost overruns. Some steps had to be taken to try to mitigate those cost overruns when it was being constructed, but I don’t have the detail as to whether the fencing was a piece of that, or whether some of the aboriginal healing and spiritual programs were also a result of that.

The Member again quotes the Hansard from October 19, the first day we had oral questions in the 16th Legislative Assembly. Most of us around the table — at least from this side of the House, because I had not assigned portfolios — were expecting a light day as was past practice of new governments. But I ended up taking questions from across the delivery of programs and services by the Government of the Northwest Territories.

As the Member has quoted, I committed to providing the necessary information that is now in the hands of Members. Do we want to relive the past? I committed to stuff. I...

No. We have not set up a meeting as a cabinet or other Ministers. The point of contact will be through Minister McLeod, going on our behalf of when they are sitting on this specific issue that they are travelling on.

Mr. Chairman, we have gone back to all departments, requesting them to look at what is needed to proceed at this juncture and what could be put off. The department has looked at this and put it forward as needing to proceed with this work, to make sure that they do have the storage available for their records. It’s something we've had a problem with within the government for years, in the form of paper and boxes in basements. But with this updated electronic area, with all our new data and equipment, we need to have storage for that type of information and backup.

I can't give much more than...

Mr. Speaker, in our processes, we are beginning our budgeting cycle. Normally, budgets would be brought in place and voted in this House for April 1 and beyond. We’re coming forward with an interim process, and then May-June is the main sitting, as we’ve worked out with Members.

Some departments, as stated in the House yesterday, have come forward with a larger part because of some contracting issues, and those may be incorporated. But without the specifics, I am unable to give a full response.

Mr. Speaker, again, in a consensus-style government, working with Members as to the time frame and meeting the May-June target, we’ve had to track from that point of bringing forward a budget process. The work is going to be done to compile all that information so we can present that to Members. It will be later on this winter and early spring before we will be able to present Members draft documents of where we’re going to meet our timelines and targets for the first budget to be put in place in May-June.

Mr. Chairman, in this area, we've gone to the departments to request what they would need to proceed at this stage. Quite a number of the smaller projects that make up this amount flow into either work that's been started. And that was one of the criteria: if work had been initiated in a previous year and this is a continuation of that, then they find themselves on this plan.

As well, there are a number of other areas we're challenged in. Again, it comes back to our systems and ensuring that we have the required backup components — for example, in TSC — to ensure that if there are any problems...

Mr. Speaker, I see the path this is going down: that as a new government, as Premier, we’ve not shared any information with Members, that we’ve been withholding information. I’ve taken a large number of steps to be as open as possible with Members, to share the direction we’re going in.

In fact, early in January I offered up the opportunity to see where we’ve looked at setting these targets. We’ve shared information. Is it complicated? Is it because the Member just disagrees with where we’re going? I’m not sure.

What we were trying to do is prevent the reverse. When we heard that departments...