Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to the Laing Building, I do not believe that by selling it you are taking if off the market. Right now it is not classified as a lease property which is owned by this government. We own it lock, stock and barre. It is no cost to us in regard to leasing. If you lease that building, what you are doing is putting another 90,000 square feet on the market for whoever buys it. If that is what they want to do, that is what they can do. You are increasing the amount which is basically 220,000 square feet right now. Technically you are adding to the problem versus resolving it.

In regard to the question I asked earlier, there is a lot of office space in Yellowknife in which, to be fair to all people in the real estate market, there should have been some call for proposals so we can get the best price for the amount of money we spend. If that means someone is going to come in at a price the lease market has right now in which you are getting it for $15 a square foot, instead of paying $35 a square foot; I think the market right now is competitive and people will go that extra mile to get your business. In the case of the Laing Building, there were interested parties who took a look at it with the understanding from the Department of Public Works that there were going to be no long-term lease initiatives made. There were meetings held between the Denendeh Development Corporation, yourself and the Minister. You knew there were other interested parties in this building. You are saying, we did it. Yet, you are still planning on looking at savings. There has to be a plan in place where we know exactly the price per square foot of each of these buildings that we are looking at, so we can see exactly what the cost-savings are to this government. We recently approved three office spaces in the Centre Square, the Lahm Ridge Tower, the Northern United Place and the Professional Building. Yet, there are other buildings out there, the Northwest Tower, Bellanca Developments, where there is a lot of vacant office space. I would like to ask the Minister, did they go out for calls for proposals with regard to when they were looking at the Lahm Ridge Tower deal?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My concern is, although this government is recognizing the economic downturn, I see a couple of inconsistencies. One, for example, is ,say, for whatever reason, the Laing Building goes on the market and you take it off and, say, you cannot lease it back to the government. It does not mean that space is not available. It is there for the rest of the City of Yellowknife and people looking for office space. It is still there. Another issue, and this is coming mainly from my riding, is this government's sudden concern for economic downturn in communities. In my case, this is ten, 12 years too late. When the community of the Beaufort Delta was booming at 7,000 to 8,000 people, I do not recall a plan of the government to help out businesses that had investments in that community, but we are going at it with this.

The question I have for the Minister is, was there a plan? I know this goes back a long way, but could you give me that information? Was there a plan by the government to deal with the downturn in the Beaufort Delta economy to help out businesses that were running at the time?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I had to put a plug in for Inuvik. Mr. Chairman, the concern is, I asked the question earlier. I made reference to the Lahm Ridge being 45,000 square feet and this government having a surplus of 76,000 square feet. The Minister stated that if we took the two departments in the building and took them out, you would not be able to put them into one area in any of the space available. Could the Minister supply the information, and possibly it has already been asked with the many questions that have gone through since this began? Could the Minister supply the information that would give us the available space, where it is located and what sizes of vacancies they are? For example, in one building you could have 10,000 square feet and another 20,000. That information would be nice to have. The Minister stated earlier that there were pockets of them around, but you could not put either one of these departments into the spaces that were available. Could you come up that information?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, for clarification on a couple of questions I have. I heard the department say earlier that the deputy minister and superintendent have signing authority with regard to leases where the size of the budget, in fact, they could commit the government to long-term leases. My question is, under the Financial Administration Act, there are limitations as to how much liability this government could have at any one time. Would there not be a requirement from the departments to meet with the Financial Management Board or the rest of the Cabinet to ensure there was room for this long-term liability before anything was signed?

Mr. Chairman, I am not referring to the negotiations. I am referring to the identified needs of the departments. Obviously, the Finance Minister would have been involved at a very early stage to ensure there was room under the limitations for a long-term lease. Is that correct?