Thank you, Madam Chair. My questions and concerns are taken from the constituents that I represent. This is not a personal agenda with me. It is an issue that concerns the people in Keewatin, and more importantly concerns the riding that I represent. The Minister indicated the numbers, we go either from one day it is $60 million, then it is $100 million savings. Those are big numbers, and you are right, it could do a lot for my community, for all the communities in the Keewatin. For example, it could build us a brand new health centre that we are having difficulties in getting.
Madam Chair, to this date I do not think we have been assured these numbers are there. I know the Minister is providing this information and it is as a result of staff research and so on and so forth, but there does not seem to be a firm handle on the numbers. It fluctuates from answer to answer. When you get up to those kinds of numbers, there is not much difference when you go up another $10 million or $20 million. There is a difference, and I do not think at this point we have seen the documents that show these kind of savings. I am not for one minute saying there is not savings. I am sure there are. I recall the issue and the Minister brings up a good point and he was very instrumental in helping my communities and myself along with Minister Antoine to spend a year in dealing with the last project of this nature, which was the Rankin Inlet tank farm, where everybody in the Keewatin was going to be saved. The deal was that we would save all this money on our fuel and then find out that was not the case at all. It was a disaster.
We questioned the numbers and the Minister and his staff helped us get through this process. We are just asking the same thing. We would like to look at it and to make sure. I am sure that the numbers that the Minister is providing are numbers that are provided to him, and that there has been some research on it, but they do not seem to be very solid. I think the issue here is we do not want another tank farm fiasco. We want to make sure that what we have here is real and that it is going to benefit everybody. In order to do that, we are only asking that we take a little more time to make sure we have all the documentation, all the numbers, all the research, and I think if we had that, we would not have the Keewatin Chamber of Commerce and the various mayors in the communities and other people concerned about this issue. It is starting to have a deja vu of what we had regarding the tank farm.
My question to the Minister is, what is the great logic behind allowing more time on this. You talk about 20 years. We are in this government, we have another 16 months left before division, so we are talking a savings, if the numbers are accurate, of a few million dollars. I think the piece of mind that the communities are looking for, I think they are worth that. We are only talking about a year and a half. We are not talking 20 years as far as this government is concerned. Once again, I would ask the Minister why is it so urgent to move on this now, in 30 days? Cannot it wait until the spring? Until we have sufficient information and documentation as to the savings? Until we make sure that we have the details of the hydrographic mapping.
The Minister indicated that some of the communities are not completed yet, but on the same token we are putting forth in the next 30 days, I believe it is in the paper now, a call for an RFP for this project. I do not know how you can put this project forward and the request for proposal on it, without being able to provide the people that are going to bid on it or review it, the details of the hydrographic mapping, which is the key to the whole process here. How are they getting their points of reference on how they are going to carry on with this project. Is it going to be from the mapping guidelines that they had from 50 years ago? The Minister indicated that there was some preliminary drawings had come in this week. What does preliminary mean? Have they been analyzed? I think all these questions have to be answered. Once again, I ask the Minister, what is the rush? To say that we have all these details and complicated issues to get dealt with before division, and we are going to be too busy to do it them, I do not think it holds much water. This is what is complicating division when we take on these new projects when we are trying to work toward the basic elements of division. I ask the Minister again, would he consider looking at this in a way that would provide more time? If that question cannot be answered, if he would try to explain why it is so urgent that this project take place now, in 30 days. Thank you.