Joe Handley

Mr. Chairman, you have to recognize that the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs is a little different than a typical department in the government. We don’t manage or administer programs in the same way. The business in the ministry is negotiations. So almost all of our people in the department, with the exception of secretaries and a couple of admin people, are negotiators. They have to travel as part of their job in negotiating sessions. They are doing that on a regular basis. It’s not a ministry that you could compare easily to another department that manages the program. Thank you, Mr...

Mr. Chairman, under contract services, the $331,000, there is some consulting contracts, miscellaneous contracts, there are photocopier leases, there is the Ottawa office lease. Under fees and payments there is maximizing northern employment, the amount in there is $3.646 million for MNE, interdepartmental training and development, $350,000, staff retention, $250,000, there is an entertainment allowance which is for the secretary to Cabinet, $1,000, and then miscellaneous fees, memberships, registrations, legal fees, $20,000. In other expenses there is the TSC chargeback, that is $159,000...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The other expenses are travel and transportation: for negotiations travel, $555,000; and other Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs related travel, $213,000. That’s for going to ministerial meetings, annual assemblies, federal/provincial/territorial intergovernmental processes and so on. Secondary are materials and supplies, $80,000. This is paper for the photocopies and printers and so on. Purchased services, $109,000. Communications are things like bills for phones, faxes, courier, freight and so on. Contract services, $485,000. These are major expenses and they include...

Mr. Chairman, as I said earlier, the $100,000 for the negotiator for devolution, the government went out and had a look at who could perform this task for us and also be able to negotiate toe to toe with people like David Pederson, a former Premier of Ontario and a lawyer in Toronto. The government at the time would have approached a number of people. They identified one individual, a person who had been a deputy minister here for a number of years, who worked in the BC government, had good credentials, and after looking around, found that he most met our needs. As I recall, I wasn't in...

Mr. Speaker, there has been about $2 million invested up until now. Most of that money is from the Power Corporation, not from the government, and if the Member wanted a break out I would have to get the numbers for her. Mr. Speaker, we have had letters of interest from all of the operating mines in the slave geological province telling us that they are interested in the potential of hydro power if we can make it available. We don’t have any negotiated deals signed off yet, but all of the mines are interested if we are able to do that. As well, Mr. Speaker, there is also opportunity to...

Mr. Chairman, in the monthly reports that are provided, we do indicate the number of people who are travelling with each round of negotiations. We could, but it would be a fair bit of work, break out the number of days and the amount of travel for each Member. That would be a lot of work, but if Members really want that I will do it. It will take a lot of people time to dig that all up. Typically the group of people you would have would be no more than three. Usually we have the smallest delegation at any of these negotiations. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, there is no dollar value to it yet. This is just calling for expressions of interest. Depending on expressions of interests as well as the results of the training needs survey that we have done, then we would determine more specifically what it is we would have contracting for. We are working closely with Aurora College. As I said, the college will coordinate the more generic courses that are not government specific, while corporate human resources would deal with those that are very specific to our government. So I think there is close collaboration between ourselves and...

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, it's an ongoing contract that we would have to terminate when we no longer need the services. So there is new contracting happening.

Mr. Speaker, there are some franchises that have terminated and have not yet been signed off, but we are in the process of doing that. To my knowledge, there really isn't anything that would prevent someone from coming in and setting up a competing structure if they wanted to. In most situations, they would have an incredible task on their hands if they wanted to handle both generation and distribution. Mr. Speaker, I expect that if they were to try and set up a whole new system or duplicate a system, the Public Utilities Board may also come into play on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.