Robert Hawkins

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.

I have questions on page 13. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m going to ask about the leadership structure of Aurora College and how they’re tied into the Department of ECE. The reason I’m asking that is because last week I had asked questions about the capital planning for an Aurora College and how that process begins. To be clear and to make sure no one is fooled by my question, I’m not asking for the capital project this coming budget because we’re in an operations budget, so, as such, the planning is an operational issue.

Maybe if the Minister can enlighten us as to how the role of the Board of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Are there any technical or planning documents on the needs assessments of the college that are being anticipated for this fiscal year that are specific to the college itself? Furthermore, what has the department developed, and how much money have they spent in the past two fiscal years to that end?

Mr. Speaker, in the Minister’s mind, that horse may have been gone six years ago, but I can tell you it’s before the taxpayer for the next 35 years, if not longer.

Why didn’t the Minister of Transportation mention that we saved approximately $2.4 million on the operation and maintenance of the ferry and the ice road services? If I have to answer my own questions in this House, I’m going to ask the Minister what was left over with the $7.6 million needed to open up the bridge a year earlier. What were the benefits of opening it up a year earlier other than spending $7.6 million uselessly? Thank...

Over the last six years I’ve heard the Minister say there’s planning, discussions, planning and discussions, and more planning and discussions on the Aurora College. So what type of planning money has been committed that I’ve heard over the last six years? I’m trying to get a sense here, I asked for the last two fiscal years as well. So we hear the same answer over and over again, but now I’m hearing zero money. So I’m left to conclude that there’s some anomaly in his answers as he keeps giving them to the House about how much money he’s talked about planning for all these years. So the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 2010 Ruskin picked up the defunct contract on the Deh Cho Bridge and took the price from $167 million to $182 million. In less than a year we needed an additional $10 million that pushed the contract to $192 million. In the spring of 2012, the McLeod government went even further by demanding $10 million that brought the project up to $202 million.

The question is to the Minister of Transportation. What value and services did the taxpayer of the Northwest Territories receive over and above the original 2010 signed contract with the GNWT and Ruskin? In essence, did we...