Thank you, Mr. Speaker, for the opportunity to ask yet another question. I’ll have a question for one of the Ministers of this particular government. With that, I’ll decide. In all honesty, I have questions for the Minister of Transportation. I happen to be looking at the statement of claim made in the Ontario Superior Court about the plaintiff against Deepak International.
We don’t talk particularly about affairs before the courts due to the sub judice matter, but what’s particularly interesting of the situation is when I asked the Minister of ITI the other day about the cutting of diamonds and when these things are happening, nothing has happened for the last two years since this company struck a deal in the Northwest Territories. Now, that’s a business decision to do business or not, but it’s got me thinking, has this company been making lease payments to the Department of Transportation regarding their lease on the airport property? Because if they owe over $615,000 to some finance company, have they been making payments to the Northwest Territories, and if they have not, how long have they been in arrears and for how much? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Transportation, Mr. Beaulieu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Business between the government and the proprietors out at Airport Road is a relationship that probably shouldn’t be brought to the floor of the Legislative Assembly. I will check on that information and can advise the Member as to what the results of that are. Thank you.
I can somewhat appreciate the last answer, but if this company is in arrears to the Government of the Northwest Territories, answers are owed to the people of the Northwest Territories.
Can the Minister speak to what arrears are outstanding? If there are any, can he explain for how long and how much? Thank you.
I cannot confirm here whether or not the company that the Member refers to has lease arrears with the Department of Transportation. Thank you.
Setting that aside, if a company owes money, if they owe arrears to the Government of the Northwest Territories, I need to appreciate how long we sit on this lack of payments. If there are any, we don’t know. I should be fair about that, we just don’t seem to know. There was no answer on that one way or another, so it’s not clear. But how long do we sit in a process of arrears before the Government of the Northwest Territories takes action? So I’d like to know what the policy is on that, because if somebody isn’t making lease payments, then we should be asking ourselves, when do we take action to ensure we protect the people’s interest? I’m referring to the people of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Usually it’s not an issue; people pay their leases. If a company was to fall into arrears, then as soon as the department identifies that as an arrears problem, then we would contact the company immediately and start taking action to recover our lease payments. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Presently in Ontario Superior Court a $615,000 claim is being made against this particular company. I’m worried about the Northwest Territories’ particular interest, recognizing that this is approximately one-third of the value of the two buildings which were purchased and I’d hate to see the Northwest Territories lose its position on these growing bills.
So, my question again to the Minister, if he can clarify this, or certainly help me out and help everybody out on this, what is the policy that we allow arrears? For how long and how large can we allow arrears to build up before the Government of the Northwest Territories takes action for the people of the Northwest Territories to protect our interest? That’s what should really matter. Thank you.
If it was viewed by the government that lease payments were not being made, then it becomes a problem lease. Then any of the departments would then go to the Finance department and have the Finance department’s collection division deal with it. So as soon as it’s identified as a problem lease, we would then move the file to Finance for collections.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Mr. Hawkins.
