Sandy Lee

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are to the Minister of Housing. It is in regards to the market housing initiative. I have been thinking and reread the notes of Hansard yesterday. I must tell you, Mr. Speaker, it is a complete outrage that, in last March, the government told us that the sky will fall if we do not waive BIP and if we do not order 22 mobile homes from somewhere in southern Alberta, Las Vegas 1-800 number, because we had to house the teachers and nurses. The Minister tells us yesterday that only 14 have been taken and they have no idea what went wrong...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I need to know where the 59 percent that stayed in the North are located. Are they all in the communities, or is any of it in Yellowknife? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I have some more questions on this item. First of all, I have questions about the use of special warrant. My last question last Friday dealt with this issue because my understanding of special warrant is an expenditure of something that is of an emergency nature. Given that this premise that the government has leased for this legal aid office is not in any way being renovated or opening, and given that we just had session in June…

I only have 10 minutes so I don’t want to use up all the time, but from a commonsense point of view, we understand when there...

Just to be clear on the 22 homes that were ordered, could the Minister be more specific about what the problems are? Is it getting the gravel there, or getting the stuff there, or are the people not being able to purchase those homes? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If the Members recall, we had a huge debate in this House in June. There was a lot of urgency there because the corporation felt it needed to meet the barge deadline. Now I’m being told that those units are not in place and this is almost the end of October now. So I’d like to know if the Minister could commit to holding off -- because I think there’s a second phase to this program -- any thought of ordering 22 more of them for next year, until this whole thing is revisited. Thank you.

Just say no.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not sure that this issue can be explained by a review. I really would think that it would be better for the Minister to explain what sorts of steps are in place to make sure that these two people can do their jobs independently and not be accused of interference, because I think that would be in their benefit as well. The second thing, Mr. Speaker, he talked about an internal review…