Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to do a brief reply to the budget address, as well. Let me just make one general comment about the budget, Mr. Speaker, first.

I do share Mr. Braden’s point that there has been quite a bit of feedback from the people out there on not only on what is in the budget, but what is not in the budget. I think for future references, the Minister of Finance should be mindful of the fact that the budget document is not just a communication tool for him to speak to the Minister of Finance in Ottawa. It is a document for everyone in the North. Everyone in the North needs to feel like they are included and reflected in the budget.

I know for a fact that there are lots of new initiatives and spending in social and health and many different areas that we are going through line by line, but on that important budget day, when the Minister of Finance gets up and reads the statement, that was not there. I think the Minister of Finance has taken that to heart and I am sure that he will not do that brief thing again next year.

Mr. Speaker, I would just like to take this opportunity to highlight the important issues surrounding the pipeline workforce conversion mentioned on page 5 of the budget, also known as the concept of ATCO Novel housing, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, it is very important for the people out there to know that we are not dealing with the situation here as reported in the media where Imperial Oil has decided that it will leave behind 1,400 used mobile homes at the end of the pipeline construction and the government is being asked to pick them up at the bargain basement price and sell them to interested buyers or to those in need of social housing and make headway into our social housing issues. That is not as simple as that. If it were, I wouldn’t have as much trouble as I do with this concept, Mr. Speaker.

What we are dealing with here is a situation where if this 15th Assembly does not do its job well of making sure that this housing Minister, this Finance Minister and the Cabinet does its due diligence, instead of leaving 1,400 nice homes all over the North, we could very well leave the 17th and 18th assemblies of this government with a $300 million plus housing boondoggle, Mr. Speaker. Already, the cost of this project has gone up from $220 million the last time we talked about it in November to $297 million in this session.

A large part of that cost increase is estimated to be for the interest to be charged to the federal government -- and get this -- because the federal government is not yet willing to come into this project at the front end. The positive response the Minister is talking about amounts to the former Housing Minister Fontana’s verbal commitment, and a reasonable mind has to wonder why the federal government is not willing to come to the front end and make the kind of investment that this government is looking for in order for this project to happen.

Mr. Speaker, for the $500 million to come under the socio-economic impact fund to 22 affected communities, there have already been community workshops and discussions in communities about how the money will be spent. Yet, when we are talking about something as big as almost $300 million for this housing project, there is no such discussion taking place, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you that I am personally offended when the Ministers and MLAs suggest that asking questions and having a critical view on this project amounts to not supporting or caring about bringing more social housing to small communities. This reminds me of a time when I opposed the hotel tax for every hotel room in the North because I thought that would do more harm for our hotel and tourism industry than good. I was then accused of not supporting the hotel industry because I wouldn’t tax them. Well, we don’t have that tax now and thank goodness for that.

Hear! Hear!

Sandy Lee

Range Lake

Mr. Speaker, I am even more personally offended when my repeated questions about this multi-million project results in a letter from the Minister of Housing with an invitation for an all-expense paid trip to the ATCO Novel plant in Calgary, and to have him tell me how so many leaders have travelled there and how impressed they have been with them. Mr. Speaker, I am offended with this because this tells me more clearly than anything else that the Minister is totally missing the point about getting the information out about a project as big as what he’s talking about. He could do this, but he needs to get the information out.

Mr. Speaker, he should stop being the tour guide to the ATCO plant and really concentrate on a cost-benefit analysis of this project…

Hear! Hear!

Sandy Lee

Range Lake

…because my questions, Mr. Speaker, of this project have nothing to do with the capacity of ATCO to build these Novel trailers or any other trailers they build. ATCO is a well-established company in the North. They employ a lot of people and I have no problem accepting that that company can do the job. The question here we have to ask is, if we have a $300 million project with social housing, how do we best spend that? We need to do the due diligence test that takes us at the end of that analysis that, in fact, ATCO Novel is the best way to go. We are not there yet. To say, whenever we are asking questions, don’t you care about 1,400 new homes in the North, that is not a good argument. That is not a responsible debate and that is not doing the Minister’s job, Mr. Speaker.

Hear! Hear!

Sandy Lee

Range Lake

Mr. Speaker, as I stated, this may be that this is the project to go with. Let me state this again. It may be that the Novel idea is the best way to go.

---Applause

May be!

Sandy Lee

Range Lake

But, Mr .Speaker, this government has already stated that the viability of ATCO project depends on the pipeline going ahead and Imperial Oil using the ATCO project. But, Mr. Speaker, that is not up to the government to decide. It’s up to Imperial Oil. If they decide to go with the pipeline, who are they going to buy their housing from?

Mr. Speaker, I believe that I need to ask questions like has the government looked to see what housing building options are available other than this idea? They need to do that test. With $300 million, can we do a stick-built house? Those are questions that need to be asked. All I get from them is, there is no way we could do that, no way, no way, no way. I have no evidence that suggests that they have asked these questions.

Mr. Speaker, if we decide that we should go with the mobile home way -- and I understand there are great opportunities in mobile homes -- what options are out there? Ask them. He’s in the driver’s seat. He’s got to get his blinders off and stop focussing on Novel. He’s got to look beyond one company and say what are other ideas? What companies are out there who could do this job?

Mr. Speaker, another thing that I have a real problem with, and there is no information we have that suggests that the Minister has talked to any of the regional governments, or even aboriginal governments, or even the construction industry. I would like to see a letter from them that says we have been asked to see what we can do in terms of building housing and this is my information. ,Mr. Speaker, when the Minister was asked questions about what sort of training opportunities we have available on this social housing initiative, Mr. Speaker, he says people can go and get trained at ATCO in Calgary. What are they studying? Are they going to get a degree out of the University of ATCO? The housing units are going to be done in three years. Why, when we are spending $30 million at Aurora College at the Fort Smith campus, $30 million in Yellowknife…That could be the total budget, sorry. When we have Aurora College and we have an Apprenticeship Program, we have a skilled program, we are trying to train our local labour, why can’t we expect…Why should we not expect that the Minister of Housing work with the Minister of Education and Minister of ITI and say this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the government to do something good.

There is a possibility of money coming and how do we maximize our potential in this area? Is putting all the money and all the eggs in one company the best way, the best thing we can do, Mr. Speaker? That is the kind of due diligence test that must be asked, that has not been asked, and I insist that this Cabinet ask it.

Mr. Speaker, I could tell you that I have…Let's talk about tenancy issue. The Minister states that before this session, in the last session, the Minister said the project was about $220 million and most of it was going to come from the federal government and territorial government, and very little of that from the industry. Now the scenario has changed, Mr. Speaker. The cost of it has gone up to $300 million and now he's expecting a lot more will come from private industry. Well, it could be that once the mobile homes go into Inuvik or wherever that there will be private sector who wants to do that. Well, why shouldn't the private sector do that? Why is this government interfering on private sector development, Mr. Speaker?

I tell you, we have an example already in the last example where the Housing Corporation went into a market initiative, wanted to bring 24 mobile homes and none of them have to be converted or anything. They were bought and they found out that people said they didn't want them. I am saying there is a need for that, but I could not trust that this government has done enough due diligence test to get us into a $300 million deal.

So, Mr. Speaker, I am going to keep this issue alive. I think there's a question to be asked about how this government, you know, if ATCO is the best company to do this job, the contract deal is between the ATCO and the Imperial Oil. It's up to Imperial Oil how they're going to spend their money buying housing. So I don't know why this government is spending all this money lobbying for one idea by one company who should be lining up with everybody else to do their work, Mr. Speaker.

So I think I've stated enough about some of the concerns I have. I believe the Minister is going to provide this…