Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Well, the honourable Member knows I'm strong advocate of ownership and we have demonstrated that in a number of occasions across the Northwest Territories. In my own riding, there is a strong movement, the development corporation gets involved in housing and office facilities.
However, even when we do the housing and office facilities, we have to ensure that government is getting good value for money because it is public funds we are spending and we also have to make sure that the cost of the lease component doesn't override the capital cost on the front end. If it is going to cost twice or three times as much, while it may appear in the short-term that there are some savings, in the long-term, the long-term financial obligations, there could be significantly more cost.
That's a question of analysis, I guess, at the time. The other thing, the way I understand it, anyway -- and I'm somewhat familiar with this department from my previous background -- is some facilities are viewed as public facilities versus a staff house or an office. In other words, an arena is a public facility, therefore the public has to have total access to it, whereas a staff house or, in some cases, an office isn't quite interpreted the same way.
I could be wrong, and I can check with the officials, but certainly from my perspective, I don't think there is anything wrong with looking at the possibility of leasing public facilities. But, we have to ensure that the community is in favour of it. Because, remember, the municipal governments and hamlets want to own these. We'll use the arenas as an example, they want to own these arenas. They create a number of jobs, whether in maintenance or a recreation coordinator, or whatever. So, I don't think there is any policy, as such, that says we can't do that. I think it has been viewed as a public facility, rather than as a semi-public facility, like an office or the leasing of housing.
I think that's the best way I can answer that, at this time. I don't know whether that would satisfy Mr. Gargan. But, that's the way I would view it. I would say to you that, in the short time I've had this portfolio, if a proposal came forward from a community that had strong community support, and the numbers were appropriate -- in other words, it wasn't an exorbitantly expensive -- and it could be clearly demonstrated that it was in the fiscal interest of the government, why wouldn't we do it? I guess that would be my question. It is more a question back to you.
I wouldn't see us not doing it, but it would have to meet these kinds of criteria, and it would definitely have to have strong municipal support from the hamlet settlement council. Thank you.