Michael Miltenberger

To the best of my knowledge, yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Speaker, the simple answer that I know of is that we just don’t have that kind of money, nor are we in a position to borrow that kind of money when you look at all the other competing interests we have, the reduction exercises we’re going through, the revenue option exercises we’re going through. That would be the main issue.

I do want to say that I’ve heard the Member’s concerns. Clearly, we’re committed to moving on the idea and concept of a heritage fund. We intend to come forward with information that would allow us to have that debate and discussion and hopefully get that structured...

Initially we’re looking at the kind of arrangement that could be made on resource royalty sharing. There’s the infrastructure option that was put forward by the Premier on behalf of the Premier and Cabinet. The issue of an equity position was not really strongly considered, mainly because there were other things at play, and our own fiscal situation doesn’t give us a lot of free capital to get things done.

Mr. Speaker, clearly, those are responsibilities of the federal government, but we share the concern that there are things like cumulative impact work that are identified and are not properly funded. There are other concerns that some of the boards aren’t adequately funded, as well. We’ll be looking at all those issues as we come forward.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with the Member about the need.... I think it has all been identified, the issue of deferred maintenance both for buildings and equipment and the cost that there is built up if we don’t do it right. As the Member indicated, the 20 year needs assessment will be reviewed and revamped on an ongoing basis as some projects follow up and get built and other ones come on.

Just for the record I would like to note that the money going to communities is the $28 million from the capital formula that is being proposed and another $6.1 million under the Building Canada fund...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Work is being done in that area. As well, work continues to be done to address and analyze and be able to give a thorough response to the McCrank report, about which we want to deal with the new government once the election is over. That work is expected to be done for the McCrank report sometime in November, I believe.

Mr. Chair, I just wanted to reiterate for the record that this project is replacing Sir Alexander Mackenzie and Samuel Hearne, two fairly large schools, and as Mr. Aumond indicated, it’s going to provide the schools under one roof. Those are two large facilities. There’s a large school population. So we have to keep that in mind as well. It speaks to the size. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, first I’d just like to acknowledge the Member raising this concern about too much information on specific contracts that skewed the tendering competitive bid process. We’ve attempted to address that.

In terms of the evaluation process, as I’ve indicated — it’s been raised by yourself, Mr. Chair, and a number of your colleagues, including Mr. Hawkins — we will come forward in the final analysis, as we finalize the process, with that component built in.

The issues are to do more with issues tied to bonding issues and such.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The work of the infrastructure subcommittee that is looking at the whole capital planning process is, in fact, trying to identify and come to grips with recommendations to deal with issues that the Member has raised: the concern about overdesign, the cost factors, the issue of standardized designs, the moving towards bundling of projects so that we can in fact be more efficient.

For us the evidence over the years has been clear in terms of the cost, the number of carry-overs, the number of tenders where there was one bid or no bids or bids that are not even close in...