Robert Bouchard

That’s all for now, thank you very much.

I’m just wondering about this electronic medical recordkeeping system. Are there prepackaged systems out there or are we creating it from scratch? Will we be able to use northern contractors for this service?

A follow-up question on that program. So that is the program that’s already out there and we’re just piggybacking with the federal government, or is this something we’re creating on our own?

I guess in closing I don’t have any questions, but I do have concerns with this project. This government has indicated, and discussed it last Assembly as well, that decentralization was an issue and they’re still looking to increase – from what I can tell – more office space in Yellowknife area, which from what I understand doesn’t seem to discuss anything about decentralization and they’re not willing to discuss that at all. I have a problem with the fact that government is getting into where the private sector should be involved. Being a pure businessman, I guess, and now a politician, I...

So, for my clarification, we never looked into future departments’ needs in the upcoming years. These office spaces that we’re clearing out, potentially may be clearing out, may be filled in by other departments that are squeezed right now.

One of the other concerns that I have in the briefing I received is the government’s assessment that we need to keep a certain percentage ownership versus rental. They referred to a lot of southern numbers. I’d like to just ask the department if they actually considered the cost of doing business in the North, which would be quite a bit higher and that we’re probably pretty close to where we should be as far as the ratios. Those people who do lease from us do have a lot more costs in their operations. Did the department look into that?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My questions today, too, concern the general purpose office building. I’m not 100 percent agreeable to this concept. I have reviewed some of the briefings on the issue. I think we’re looking for some of the dollars that we’re saving over a longer period of time, then we could also do half a dozen things to look at what the territorial government does to save that kind of money. If we look at long term versus rewards, there are a lot of things that the territorial government does that we could eliminate costs.

One of the first questions I have for the Minister is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Education. It’s concerning the financial assistance program. One of the concerns I’ve heard of during the campaign was that we are fully funding a lot of the students, which I recommend is a good idea, but we have no agreements to see any of those benefits. Some of the fully funded students get jobs in the South and there’s no agreement for us to see any of their benefit in the North. Will the Minister see if that will be part of the review?

As far as the assessment of the prepackaged systems that are out there, is that included in these costs of the system?

That’s good to hear. I’ve heard that there are difficulties with sharing information and this system will allow that, of sharing information from the local hospital authority to the territorial Stanton Hospital.