Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister asked for some comments and reasons why the Committee were opposed to amalgamation. Just to keep my comments short, I would refer to this document which has been tabled in the House and I think it is a reasonably good summary of the reasons why the Committee could not support the initiative at this time.
One other item I would draw to the attention of the Minister. It was discussed today in the House, the Minister of Finance talked about time to division, and time is money and he suggested that time is much more valuable than money is because of the shortage of time left prior to division. I would suggest that was probably a large determining factor in the Committee's response and reason for shelving this at this time. That is not to say that there are not initiatives that the Minister proposed with a couple of departments that could not proceed. There is no reason why one of the department's, for example Public Works, could not take on the design and project management of infrastructure, whether it is tank farms, or schools. That work can still be done for a department on a cost recovery basis. The user pay initiatives are a good example of that. The different departments can amalgamate their resources and provide services accordingly.
I think if the Minister wants a response to bring to Cabinet, I think the most strong response that I could offer to him is during this discussion of amalgamation I did not hear one ordinary Member speak in favour of this initiative. I would suggest that it has been really well looked at and if the Minister does want some ammunition, if you will, to take to Cabinet. There is not support for this at this time from this side of the Legislature at least. Thank you.