Michael McLeod

I certainly can commit to working with the Premier to see what options there are and what involvement the federal government could be requested to assist us with in this situation.

Mr. Speaker, the indications that we had from the federal government was that either this project to have to move forward as a P3, because the project had started already prior to the P3 program becoming active and having the board set up, we didn’t qualify. We had been also asked to be considering using the Building Canada funding for the bridge if we thought that his was a high enough priority. At the time it was decided that there were many other projects that could utilize the Building Canada funds, therefore, that’s where we would invest, as the bridge project already had financing...

Mr. Chairman, we can certainly point to the fact that the availability of office space has been practically zero in Yellowknife. The demand is certainly growing and we feel this is a valued investment. It would help in many different ways and, yes, the people that are planning to have available office space are quite aware of what we’re doing. In fact, they are working on some of the aspects of this new building with us.

Oh, I’m sorry; I should correct that. I just had a correction here. They are working on another building that will be opening up office space.

Mr. Chairman, the size of the building that we would like to bring forward is 6,000 square metres and it’s around the same size as the Laing Building, I believe. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, our government has a multi-tiered approach towards ensuring we have safe drinking water. Our department, Public Works and Services, is a part of that along with ENR, Municipal and Community Affairs and Health. We get involved during the planning study portion. Once there’s a source of water identified, we help with the engineering, we help with testing the source and things of that nature. There are also other departments involved as it goes up the line. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the Member has pointed out that there has been a fairly large percentage of increase in this area and, of course, there are a number of cost drivers that we can point to. As it stands now, the departments are responsible for the cost in their areas. It’s fairly difficult for us to on our own put a cap on it, but that’s something that we can certainly have a discussion on. We can spend quite a bit of time talking and investigating the different areas that are driving the costs up. We’ve offered committee a more detailed briefing and that offer is still on the table if the Members...

Thermo-scanning is I believe what the Member is referring to, and we have used it in the Sahtu and we have used it in Norman Wells and other communities. We’ve also done some thermo-scanning of municipal facilities. Thank you.

Yes, we always are very diligent when we’re dealing with fuel and we monitor our facilities very closely. Any time there is any indication of potential contamination, we certainly don’t hesitate to move on it. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the response is the same. We are in the planning study of having a strategic plan for replacement, upgrades and retrofits of the facilities that are going to be required as we move forward with our building maintainers. So both the facility at the tank farm and the facility for Public Works in the community are at the planning stage and we’ll share the information as to the long-term plans for that as we move forward. Right now they’re currently not in this budget, but we are working on getting the information that’s required. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, we certainly recognize that the Member has raised a number of issues in this area, and we can commit that we’ll start working on it in this coming fiscal year and hopefully we’ll have a better response by the next time around or the next set of business plans. Thank you.