Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate his superfluous statement and principle about benefiting everybody in the North, but the Minister did not answer my question. I need to know who got the benefit of BIP. The Minister just indicated earlier that he reinstated BIP for subcontractors. I want to know who those businesses are or at least what work they performed.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to follow up on the questions that I had for the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation earlier. Mr. Speaker, if I understood him correctly, he indicated that in fact the Housing Corporation lifted the BIP waiver. The waiver that they fought so hard for; they being Mr. McLeod and Mr. Bell. They told us the world will end if they didn’t get it this way, now the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation for the first time just now enlightened us that he, in fact, lifted that waiver for the subcontractors. To the same question, in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It never fails to amaze me how we get these morsels of information in the midst of question and answer period, because it never ever was told to me that BIP was reinstated. How nice to find this out as a surprise at the end of October. Anyway, Mr. Speaker, I think there are ample reasons to suggest that the Minister should really look into other modes of providing this housing, because this mobile home idea is not working. If they can’t even make it off the barge, I really think it is about time the Minister revisit this. Will the Minister revisit this? Thank you...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It appears that the Minister is picking out only one of the problems. He said yesterday in Hansard, page 2196, and I quote, “we did have some logistical problems by way of transportation, barging, looking at sites for these units, gravel was a problem…and power hookup.” Mr. Speaker, I say that they had problems at every corner and every aspect. I have to ask the question, this decision was made in the previous Assembly. This was not a surprise. The Housing Corporation had at least two years to prepare for this. If they can’t figure out how to hook up power, how...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to take a few minutes to recognize and honour those in our neighbourhoods and communities who are victims of sexual abuse and who are suffering silently. I would especially like to honour the stories of those who are victimized as children and let them know we, as a society, demand and accept nothing less than zero tolerance against any kind of violence, especially when it comes to sexual violence or violence of any kind against our young and innocent children.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t believe there is any task more important for people who...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I totally appreciate what the Minister is saying and it is something that I have been thinking about for many months, many weeks now. It is true; I am giving the Minister an opportunity to explain what is happening in the department. It hasn’t anything to do with the individuals. I am telling the Minister that there are concerns, and I want him to explain to the House what he has done as Minister of Justice to make sure that all is in good order. It’s true; those two employees can’t explain themselves. I’m giving the Minister an opportunity to explain...

Just to clarify, I don’t know if I should do it in a point of order, Mr. Chairman. I would leave that up to you. I am very mindful of how we use information. I was only going with what Mr. Dent said earlier. He said earlier, if you’ll check the transcript, that he was expecting this office to be open by October 1st. It’s his words, not mine and I’m not quoting from what we said in committee.

The second thing is the price of the lease -- $395 per square metre -- was information given by Mr. Roland last Friday. So it’s in the transcript. I was not exposing any information from private or...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, colleagues. Mr. Speaker, I want to tell the Minister and the senior management that of the people who are talking to us, many of them I consider to be the kind of people that we call the salt of the earth. I don’t just accept whatever everybody tells me. These are the people who have lived here for a long time; 26 or 30 years. They have worked in the correctional system. They know what they are talking about. I think it will do the Minister and the management a lot of good to listen to what is being said and try to enhance or improve the situation that...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don’t think I got the answer on why. At least Mr. Roland, and I know he’s not here, at least his assertion that chances are there are no other spaces, I think it was just a matter of decisions that officials had to make with the set of circumstances that it had. I had a question, now I’m just losing my thought here. My understanding is a special warrant is for money that has already been spent. Is that true? Or is it just allocated and sitting in a bank somewhere or account somewhere waiting for renovations to start, and if that’s the case right now there’s money...

Thank you, Madam Chair. We have before us a special warrant for $115,000. My understanding is that that is a ballpark figure. That is something that they had to allocate before they could go out for RFP. There is a very good chance that this might be higher. It may end up costing the government more to renovate this. It might be less; I don’t know. Minister Roland indicated that the landlord is very cooperative in this regard. The landlord says that there are other plans to make some of the retail stores into office space, and this fits into their plan. That landlord has agreed to pay...