Robert Hawkins

Mr. Chairman, not to be picky, of course, but in Gametì, there’s a gymnasium and it’s funded through Capital Investment Expenditures, not O&M. Maybe the Finance Minister can explain the difference — why we’ve now agreed it’s not right, it’s not wrong through O&M; now, we’re funding through capital. Can he explain why it’s good for one but not for the other?

First, I’ll say thank you to the Justice Minister who will supply me with that detailed information. May I encourage him not to just stop at the detail I’ve offered. If he thinks something’s relevant to highlight, please do.

The other point I want to make is that if these communities are good enough for MLAs to stay in, I certainly hope that judges are not too good to be there too.

Mr. Chairman, the issue of the community owning the asset is not the issue. It is simply how we define projects through a funding process. Regardless of whether the community of Nahanni Butte gets it through the O&M or just a cheque directly from the Finance Minister, I don’t really care, to be honest.

The fact is that we’re funding this project up front before we’re even given a capital project, and on top of that, we’re building a capital project with O&M money. I don’t like the principle of the process that we’re going through. And I wish to put it on the record that I don’t think it’s...

The next subject is the $493,000 for court travel. Although it may be difficult to phrase a question, there is some concern that the court circuit is done in the most expensive way, a most expensive process. I would like the FMB Minister to ensure that we just don’t charter for charter’s sake when it comes to planes. Maybe we’d consider things like sched flights.

Again, I don’t think there have been any court cases that have been kicked out of the system, that I’m aware of in recent history, because they decided to have a trial on a day the plane actually flew into a community as opposed to...

Mr. Chair, we’re on page 11, yes? Thank you. Just to make it firm. I couldn’t hear you.

I have a concern to the Premier, or I should say the Finance Minister, on the way we fund projects. In this particular case we have a transfer of infrastructure contribution funding to capital investment expenditures.

What it is, is the money that goes to the Nahanni Butte gym. Before we get too far, I want to firmly state that I’m in support of their project. It’s the process that we go about this in transferring O&M to capital dollars and then transferring it over.

My point — which was made at the start of this, which I referenced — stands very clearly. We're spending a lot of money to talk about the most expensive people on our payroll by hiring expensive consultants to challenge and negotiate with more expensive consultants. I wouldn't doubt that these expensive consultants’ time is worth the money that they billed for, but it’s a process that seems to cost us money.

When we talk about times like these, where we have to find ways to be creative and succinct in how we can find ways to save money, a three-page piece of legislation could clear this up. I...

When the Minister says that they will be re-profiling it, does that mean it will be voted on as new money, or will it fall out of this system into the lapsed process, back into the Treasury, and be put up the competition like every other program, or will it be re-profiled automatically on the Tourism Product Diversification line item?

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate an honest answer from the Minister. There is no program, unfortunately. It’s great that she corrected herself because probably she wasn’t allowed to reveal that fact.

The fact is: what is the problem here with this situation? Do we hog-tie these mental counsellors and addictions folks to not contact their clients? Is there anything that stops them from contacting their clients? If there is nothing, then why don’t we follow through on this and create a program that allows them to phone these clients? I am sure they are not that busy.

Would the Minister be willing to provide the details of the questions I’ve asked earlier about the details of what their insurance is, the premiums, things like that — those types of details? I won’t repeat every one of those questions, but would he be willing to provide that detail to me?

I’ll go on to my next question, which is the $133,000, after he’s done.

Mr. Chairman, I was just going to reaffirm that I hope the Department of Education, Culture and Employment is taking this seriously, the increase, and that I too – Mr. Ramsay beat me to the punch –- think that this is now a serious demonstration of how we could fix some of our expenditures and our problems associated with that.

On top of that, a lot of people know that this would bring a new and much higher profile to the college, that I think it requires and is also hungry for, because I think this college now wants to continue to grow. As well, it has potential, I think, of migrating towards...