Robert Hawkins

Mr. Chairman, I’m not talking about capital, I’m talking about the plan. So if the college wanted to come forward with this type of initiative that it all starts with the booklet, the study, the review, the programming and that’s the capital planning. It says right here in the third paragraph, business and capital planning for the department, and that’s what I keep referring to. I’m not sure why this seems to keep… No one is talking about a $40 million to $50 million, even $60 million infrastructure when we can’t even talk about the plan. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I respectfully say that he started going on to private sector requests. He didn’t answer that. The only time he said he got a letter was from the college recently that’s an expression of interest. That’s when I asked what does that mean. Then I asked him about, is this the only time this type of request went in. The record will state that he started talking about private sector requests being involved. He didn’t answer the question, which had to do with, has Aurora College sent letters in the past in the last few years to that. I would say that I didn’t get a clear...

Sure, for the sake of moving forward, I will withdraw that.

Is this the only request of this type of nature – and I’m trying to speak in general terms, that is – that the department has received? Or have they received other requests of a similar nature in the past couple of years?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Now I’m hearing there are two or three lines they’re reporting to and I’m trying to get to the bottom of this, that if the college wants to put forward a particular initiative, who do they forward it to in the department? Does that person or persons… We need a clear role because somebody would be in charge of that.

The Minister has been in charge of this department for six years. I have been asking about an Aurora College plan for years. Is someone at the department stopping this? I’m not sure what the heck he’s doing over there. I want to be clear on the record. Who is...

Maybe the Minister could elaborate what expression of interest means.

If a message was sent from the Board of Governors to the chair, to the president to be carried to the Department of ECE, would ECE have the ability to say no if the college, through the Board of Governors, through the chair, through the president said that they wanted to build a stand-alone college? Would they have the authority to say no? Who would that particular person be to say no? Who would be saying no if the answer happened to be no? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The question was, what did Aurora College put forward as a capital planning initiative to the department on their own initiative? Now, we’ve heard the Minister and certainly Mr. Devitt talk about the technical planning the department does through its needs assessment. What initiative for the planning process has been put forward by the college so that we know where it goes into the system so that could be rolled forward? What was the college’s initiative?

My question seems to continue to elude the department. I’ve asked to set aside the board governance, but when the board governance model, which we haven’t got to yet, is an issue to discuss, but when that message of the college… Maybe I’ll wrap it up this way, because it seems to cause a problem. When the message of the college comes forward, who trumps the message of the college at the department? Does the college itself report to a director somewhere within the system? Does the message of the college report to an associate deputy minister, an assistant deputy minister? Are they treated like...

I’m not on the standing committee, so I will go to the Minister for his thoughts on that regard.