Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, what I want to hear today is that this school is a priority on this government’s agenda. That is what I want to hear today: a priority. Now, I know there is a lot of competition for capital projects, but we have had an increase in our ability to borrow money. It has gone to $500 million now, I think. I would suggest that this is important enough that if there are competing projects, the government should borrow money to fix this problem as opposed to letting it languish. But in the meantime, will the Minister commit that the things that can be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this technical review that I am making reference to with respect to the Diamond Jenness Secondary School in Hay River was completed in August 2006. Might I compliment the Department of Public Works and Services for actually a very comprehensive and thorough review of the school. However, I don’t know what has been done with this information since. There aren’t too many pieces of infrastructure or buildings that would be allowed to go into this state of disrepair. There are health issues. There are safety issues. There are code issues. This is a...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that we report progress.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We are going to save our questions until after our comments, so we have a cast of thousands of questions over here. Just kidding. That is what we decided to do. I am not sure if Members have any questions or not. There is one question I do have. I would just like to ask the Premier -- I probably should have asked this on the day you ran for Premier and not today; it is a bit late now -- I hope there is going to be a real culture of working together. You talk about change. There is one thing that is very quickly within our ability as 19 Members to change here. I...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The wish of the committee today is to deal with the sessional statement in Committee of the Whole today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

…abandoned light fixtures. Let’s take them down. That is not big ticket stuff. Can we maintain the school, at least?

Mr. Speaker, my question is, do we have enough staff and enough resources in Hay River to try and maintain this building so that it does not deteriorate further and fall into further disrepair? If we’re going to do a retrofit on it, wouldn’t it make sense to try and stop damage from getting worse, from deterioration occurring? I mean, that’s kind of how I think. We’re supposed to be stewards of these resources that we have. That would make sense. Take the hospital, for example. They have a dedicated maintenance staff. There’s at least three or four people at the hospital who are dedicated to...

Mr. Speaker, if I owned a building that had code deficiencies like those listed in this report, somebody who is an inspector in the government would be all over me. Who can I call to report the disrepair and the code deficiencies in this school? To whom shall I report it if it is a government building? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have a way of assessing our priorities when it comes to capital planning in this government. It is the protection of people and the protection of assets. I would like to suggest that the people are not being well served by this building. I would suggest that this is an unhealthy building to go to school in and to work in. The asset is not being protected either, because it is being allowed to go further and further into disrepair. There are some basic, not-too-costly things that could be done to at least maintain the school until a major retrofit...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have in my hand again today the technical evaluation of the Diamond Jenness Secondary School in Hay River and I could stand up here and make a nice speech and list off all the things that are wrong with that school but, you know, I am sick and tired of talking about the substandard school that we have in Hay River. There are so many things in this report that would indicate that we are expecting our teachers to work in a substandard building, we are expecting our students to be educated in a substandard building, and this is a shame. This should not be...