Sandy Lee

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…

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Perhaps one suggestion I could make that would maybe discourage the Cabinet from approving these special warrants in between sessions when we are not here is to have session every month. We could have one week a month and then they’ll have to bring all their expenditure approvals to us. We’ll just have a Cabinet meeting with 19 Members so that we don’t have a special warrant for $4.6 million where we have absolutely no say whatsoever. I mean, I was crying fowl over $115,000, now we are dealing with multimillions. That’s one suggestion, which will go, I’m sure...

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...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just want to get more information on the cost of this. The information that Minister Roland provided states that the lease space would cost $379 per square metre. I know that is a metric number, but I don’t know what that is in footage, but could I just get a confirmation from the Minister as to whether this is a yearly figure? By my calculation, that is about $36,000 a year because I think we are looking at 95 square metres of useable office space. I would like to know what other costs will be there, because this is located in a mall. In a mall, there are...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a number of questions in this area. I will try to be as quick as possible here. First of all, I would like to know why this is being approved or the government is bringing this under a special warrant. I can see a tank farm that’s deteriorating that has potential environmental consequences or a school collapsing. I could see those things brought forward for expenditure under a special warrant, but why is a second Legal Aid clinic and renovation of that coming under a special warrant? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.