Mr. Speaker, I want to be very clear here, because we’re getting these sort of semantic answers. Is the project in or out for this capital budget?

Mr. Speaker, there has been a plan on the books for a number of years to consolidate the clinics in Yellowknife to create a downtown consolidated clinic. There has been a business case made to do this, basically on the principles that we can take our existing staff and our doctors and we can put them all together and provide more services for less money. So what seems to be the problem? There is money in the budget. Where is this plan today?

Mr. Speaker, the system, I hate to say, doesn’t exist to anyone out there on the street. The system must exist under some rock hidden in some broom closet or something, because I’ll tell you, we’ve got small businesses out there that need help filling out the paperwork . That’s what they need. They need someone to help them along with the process. They need someone to help them work with Citizenship Canada. They need that process. Not when they’re here, because when they’re here that’s not the problem. They just want to get them here. So the problem is getting them to the Northwest Territories...

Mr. Speaker, I believe quite firmly in the concept of lifelong learning, and I’ve been reading a lot of Greek mythology lately. I have to admit I did have a tongue-twister trying to describe this situation. In modern terms it’s referred to as a rock and a hard place. But in my reading it was called the Scylla and the Charybolis, and it was about that six-headed monster versus the monster that sinks your ship through whirlpools. I thought that perfectly — perfectly, I have to stress — describes the struggle of small business, where the monster of the system chews you up and spits you out and...

With a whole bunch of leases coming up, the time is now to act. With us having to find this money through our financial exercise of reductions, this is the time to act.

Mr. Speaker, what is this Minister doing to make sure that this consolidated clinic becomes a reality in this coming budget and a reality in this session of this Assembly?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I encourage the Minister, in this case, to talk about it now. What better place than this Assembly?

In a time where efficiency is…. We have a dire need to create efficiencies within our system. If we can prove the fact — which has been done already — to create a system that gives us more efficiencies, better service for less dollars, what’s the problem here?

Mr. Speaker, where is this plan in the process? There has been capital money already directed toward this project. What’s happening to date?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I am not going to say that I agree with the Minister, because I didn’t agree with that at all.

Mr. Speaker, there is no system to help a small business like a restaurant hire a professional cook who cooks a very special style. There’s no program out there that helps other small businesses bring in foreign workers so they can fill gaps for skilled and semi-skilled workers. He may have a system out there — who knows where — that helps them learn English. Yes, I know there are cases of that. I know that there are a few other things. But there’s nothing to help them...

I was just going to call it quits until the Premier mentioned one thing, which was “if there was a savings.”

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that when you have an RFP — a request for proposal; that is, you request a proposal for a contract tender, and you get a comparison dollar figure on a product, and hopefully it’s the same kind of product they’re offering when it goes out to bid…. But when you do a negotiated contract, you have nothing to compare it to. You just sort of go in and say, “What’s the best price?” And then, “Can we live with it in our budget?”

Mr. Speaker, would the Premier initiate a...

Mr. Speaker, when we talk about these difficult times where we have to go back to considering reductions and strategies for that, a couple of pieces of work were left unfinished, I would like to say, in the 15th Assembly. On the boards and agency review, which looked at strategically refocusing on how we do business, I’d like to know from the Premier — this is one suggestion I’m going to put out today; I’m going to give another one in the next question — would you revive this initiative and take a serious look at it? If our boards and agencies are costing us a lot of money and not providing a...

The federal government established a volunteer day, and it allows employees to go and do personal things and volunteer on initiatives that bring them personal satisfaction. This would help raise the morale, as I’ve said numerous times already now, within our service. Here we are buckling down very tough on them, but we want to give them something that they enjoy, something that means something special in their lives.

I’d like the Premier to reconsider his statement and see if he would look into the issue and see what work can be done to help facilitate this. Because — don’t take this the wrong...