Jane Groenewegen

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’re talking about capital for the Legislative Assembly. I wonder if we could just get a description from the Minister of Finance about the condition of the property here and what the plans are for our ever sinking driveway, parking lot and heaving roadway that we call asphalt.

Which one of these on the list is a new use of space in Inuvik? I know that the deputy minister said before that there are PWS employees, I believe, still located in the office space on the ground floor of the Perry Building, so we know where they are coming from. Where are the rest of these folks coming from?

I wonder if the Minister could speak to the issue that was raised in my Member’s statement about the diversity of the different regions. Certainly some regions, like the Tlicho area…. There’s kind of an obvious way for that to work. That’s why the community service board is always held up as a prime example, and a good example, of how the integration of various social services — housing, education, health, social services — has worked in the past. That’s a very unique scenario.

When you look at communities in the South Slave, for example, you have two relatively large communities and a number...

I’m going to make a motion to report progress after we finish Justice.

Thank you. Just some quick calculations here, Mr. Chairman. This project looks like it is coming in at about $425 per…. All right, let me take that back. Different types of uses of buildings come in at different…. Hospital costs differ per square foot from a warehouse, for example, for records storage. So I would like to ask the Minister how the government’s estimate of this particular project was determined.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Members’ statement I talked about the work that is being undertaken to look at the review of boards and agencies in the Northwest Territories. My questions today are for Minister Miltenberger.

I would like to ask: how much consultation has already taken place? What’s the status of the work being done? This is something that people in the public are very interested in having input into. I’d like to know where we are in terms of the consultation and the development of a plan.

Well, that sort of begs the question: what’s going to happen with all the equipment that’s in the leased facilities now? And what’s going to happen to the clinics that are currently leased, the three that Ms. Lee or…? Somebody made reference to three clinics. Where is the equipment going from them, and what’s going to happen with the government’s investment, I guess, even if it was the federal government?

Since the GNWT invested money, particularly in the one downtown here, do they have any other alternate uses that have been contemplated for those buildings since we have invested so much?

I would like to know if that is a standard policy of this government now when going to the private sector for design/build or for construction design. With any kind of infrastructure that we are building in the government, is it now mandatory to have an element of energy efficiency built into those projects — a solid policy?

I think I heard the Minister say, “I believe so.” Was that the answer? I couldn’t hear it; it was very quiet.

For the record, that will be a competitive process for this piece of infrastructure. We keep saying: well, this project’s too big to put out to a competitive bidding process. This is one that I would imagine would be of a size that there could potentially be construction companies that could manage the bonding, and they would have capacity to deal with this.

I guess what I’m getting at is I’m just worried about losing track of what the market rates actually are if we do not continue as a government to try and procure capital through a competitive bidding process. I just want to confirm that...