Thank you Mr. Chairman. In regard to the financial situation of this government, I do not think we are out of the woods yet and I think that we have to look at possibly making some big decisions. We have major cuts in place regarding the costs of the negotiations with the UNW. There is a court case regarding pay equity, which has not been really resolved. There are still a lot of problems out there.
In the 13th Assembly, positions were being thrown around, amalgamating the Department of Public Works and Services, either in with Municipal and Community Affairs or the Housing Corporation. The Minister stated that they still have a role to play in asset management, but a large portion of that role has been devolved to a lot of the different departments. Personally, I think that what I see happening once we get rid of that POL and you do anything more in regard to where the government is going with regional capacity, is the role of this department being diminished to a point that we have to take a serious look? Is it really economical to have the department on its own with such a small budget or administration operation? The same thing goes with the Housing Corporation.
We have to seriously look at the economics of how viable it is to have all these departments, with just a small, key core unit, the staff and also the dealings particularly with different small areas of reasonability.
So I think, as a government, we will seriously have to consider it. I am not saying this in spite of this department, I am seeing it in other departments too, like the Housing Corporation and other areas that we have to seriously see what the role of those departments are, and if we are getting the value for money in regard to having to compete in different areas. With public works, you have community institutions. You have the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs doing their thing, then you have the Housing Corporation doing their thing. Sooner or later, we are going to have to say is there more need of considering looking at the reallocation of some of these responsibilities to agencies or groups within this government that are already doing these things, instead of duplicating these services. I think that that still has to be considered.