Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I’d like to take this opportunity to highlight two things that are terribly wrong with the way the Housing Corporation and the Cabinet have exempted themselves from its own BIP. Mr. Speaker, first of all, it’s the lack of input from the regular Members and a major shift in a government policy. Not just the exemption from the BIP, but the major change in the long-held policy of the Housing Corporation. For the entire period of its life, Mr. Speaker, the corporation has insisted on stick built homes rather than mobile homes. This was changed and maybe there was a good reason for this, but it has wider implications and I think we ought to have had a collective say on that. This is something we ought to be given not only prior notice of, but a real opportunity for input.

I’m quite offended that we were sent a letter at the same time the letters and press release went out to the public. I have to ask you, Mr. Speaker, are we a consensus government or not? Who’s running this government anyway? Are the regular Members going to have any input or say on such a major policy shift?

Mr. Speaker, the second issue I have with this is the role of the Minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development and the department or lack thereof. The Minister responsible -- this is the department and Minister responsible for the BIP and maximizing economic development in the North -- in answering questions says over and over that there was a balancing act of providing the badly needed housing to professionals in communities in the most cost-effective way possible. But in doing the cost-benefit analysis I have to ask what information did the Minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development bring to the Cabinet table about the loss-of-opportunity cost in sending these projects south?

Mr. Speaker, questions like the benefit of all the money the department spends on giving loans and guarantees to the businesses who could do this work. The benefit of all the transfer payments we get from the federal government for having people and businesses live and work here. That finances our whole government budget. The benefit of the money businesses and people put into our local economy from working and living here, and what about the taxes they pay? What about the community services and donations that these people and their businesses make to our local charities? What about the benefit of the reduced social cost from people getting jobs from these projects in the North?

Mr. Speaker, yesterday I finally received a package from the Housing Corporation about how cheap…Mr. Speaker, may I get unanimous consent to conclude my statement? Thank you.

Speaker: MR. SPEAKER

The Member is seeking unanimous consent to conclude her statement. Are there any nays? There are no nays. You have unanimous consent to conclude your statement.

Sandy Lee

Range Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, my colleagues. Mr. Speaker, yesterday we finally received the package from the Housing Corporation about how cheap they can buy 22 mobile homes at factory cost from down south. Well, Mr. Speaker, I could have done that. I could have just called the number and got the costs. I would certainly expect that Cabinet will make decisions like this on the basis of more comprehensive information and cost-benefit analysis.

Just yesterday we approved the government budget and RWED got $83 million and PYs of 480 people. I know that somewhere in there that department has economists and business advisors. I would suggest to the Minister of RWED that he puts them to work and gets them to start crunching the real numbers and have them ready for the Cabinet meeting tomorrow morning. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

----Applause