Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, just some brief comments that I will address in more detail when we get to the activity. Public Works and Services is a department that has had a long and important history in the community I represent. Over the years, like a lot of other places, its presence has diminished substantially. There is basically no more tradesmen; work is done by "as and when" contracts.

It still plays a key role in terms of overseeing the significant government infrastructure and various contracts and projects in the region. The one concern I do have, and I have written to the Minister about, is the concern I had with the quiet erosion of the presence of Public Works in Fort Smith. One of the areas of concern is the project officer staff issue. It all focuses around how much work is in the capital plan, how much work is in the region and the workload that is there for the staff who are on the payroll.

One of the issues that has struck me as being of interest, and I wanted to raise in the House with the Minister, is the potential for a department like Public Works to play a role in housing projects. Fort Smith is scheduled in the next couple of years for a 15-unit or 12-unit seniors housing complex. We are going to be importing a project officer staff from Housing in Hay River to come over when we have a whole complement of project officer staff sitting in Public Works in Fort Smith who have, in my opinion, all of the expertise and capacity they need to do that kind of work.

I think the same situation will apply, maybe not in Hay River since they already have their own project officer staff as well as the Housing district office, but it is more of a question of trying to integrate the common functions within the government. Public Works has a certain critical mass of specially trained technical people for those kinds of capital projects. My interest, of course, is to see them all fully and gainfully occupied, and involved in Fort Smith and the communities they service as possible. That is the one area that I have a concern with.

The other broader issue is the whole fate of the POL, the Energy Strategy, the report that is done on electrical distribution and the tie-in with NTPC. This has been an issue that has been on the table now for a number of years. There is a significant deficit in the revolving fund.

The concern is, as has been evidenced in the report, that it has to be done carefully so the small communities are not left high and dry and the high cost centres are left to the government or Public Works to administer and the cream is siphoned off through a contract.

Mr. Chairman, when you look at the role of Public Works over the last five years, where they fit in the territorial strategy is a question. There has been talk of consolidation in the past. There are a lot of common functions, capital planning functions, that are there with Housing and Public Works, possibly some with capital projects with MACA. There has been talk of that kind of integration so you get the maximum value for our money.

Once again, when the Minister replies to general comments, I would be interested to hear his thoughts about where there are any plans to try to at least coordinate the capital planning functions of government, so they are as integrated as possible. Those are my general concerns and general comments on Public Works and Services, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

The Minister responsible for Public Works and Services, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, does the committee want me to respond one by one or wait until everyone has finished general comments?

The Minister is asking whether you wish him to respond to each comment or do it all after? Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If I am the only one with general comments, it will be a self-evident response. I am not sure how many other general comments there will be. If there is more than one, I can wait. I am sure the Minister has been taking copious notes. Thank you.

General comments? Mr. Minister, could you respond to Mr. Miltenberger's questions, since he is the only person that has made general comments.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, on the first point the Member raised as to the Public Works presence in Fort Smith, I am not aware that there are any plans in place to reduce staff in Fort Smith. We did have talks as to trying to identify where most of our capital projects have been taking place and where we should have our project office located in relation to this work, but we have not firmed that up yet.

As has been the practice in the past, we normally have some discussion with the Members through the committees before we make any decisions that affect positions in their ridings. At this point in time, we do not have plans to relocate those positions.

With regard to Public Works taking on some of the project officers' duties relative to Housing Corporation projects, that is something we certainly could consider. I will make a point of having the department look into this and discuss it with the Housing Corporation. Perhaps we can respond to the Member after we have discussed this with the Housing Corporation to see if in fact there might be some benefit to this idea.

With regard to POL, at this point in time we have the same concerns as the Members, in that there would be a tendency from the private sector to pick the most profitable communities for privatization and leave the government with only the smaller communities and with the same debt to wipe out but through a smaller group of communities to spread the cost over. We are well aware of that. We have been making this one of the main points that we would take into consideration in any privatization.

We also have stated in the past that Public Works is basically waiting on hold right now until the review is done on exactly what we are going to do with NTPC and whether NTPC will take on responsibilities for POL. However, we still have been accepting offers or proposals from the private sector with regard to privatization of communities, either individually or by region. The overall thought here is that although it may seem as if it is unfair that we are holding these proposals until the review is in place, in fact these proposals will be put on the table to compare with what NTPC is offering. That is the reason to have these in place, to compare one option with the other.

As I have said in the past, one of the main factors governing these offers is that we must have the political support from the communities and the MLA for the region as well. We are hoping that by the spring there should be a review done with NTPC and we should be able make some movement on the POL privatization if we are going to do it. Thank you.

General comments? Detail?

We are on page 5-9, directorate, operations expense, total operations expense, $6,834,000.

Mr. Miltenberger.

Mr. Chairman, I want to ask a question about asset management. Am I ahead of myself? Yes, I am.

We are under activity summary, directorate. Page 5-9, directorate, operations expense, total operations expense, $6,834,000. Mr. Miltenberger.

Mr. Chairman, I want to ask a question on this as well, the records management services to government departments. The issue of government information systems, of which record keeping is a part, has been a chronic area where there have been ongoing problems and an inability of the government to get their systems up to the 21st century for records management. This issue has been on the table for some time.

There are warehouses and every storage space and nook and cranny in a lot of government buildings are crammed with records.

I would like the Minister to indicate, are they going to be able to get their handle on this? The sense I had from the report and going through the business plan is that the department has thrown up its hands. This is difficult. They do not have the resources and they do not have the authority to be able to go to departments and impose systems or requirements for records management. Thank you.

The Minister responsible for Public Works and Services, Mr. Steen.

Mr. Chairman, this is the same issue that was brought up in committee. Mr. Rattray responded at that time and I think it would be beneficial if I let Mr. Rattray respond.

The deputy minister, Mr. Rattray.

Thank you, Mr. Rattray. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The information systems in government, the corporate history, the ability to track and store in a comprehensive way that is accessible, has bedeviled the government. I am not sure what "there is an increasing uptake" means. Is that from five percent to ten percent of all communities with the Government of the Northwest Territories presently have adequate storage facilities? I am not sure.

It is very tough, it would appear, for the department to have a strong handle on where they would have to encourage. They do not have authority. There has to be some liability issues for the government here in terms of the safe and secure storage of files, of confidential files, of health files, of education files, of contract information, any number of things that would be confidential.

In Fort Smith, if you ask -- probably here as well -- some departments to get stuff, if it is more than a couple of years old, they will throw up their hands and say they do not have the manpower because they have to go to a warehouse someplace and root around a bunch of cardboard boxes trying to find the information. So could the Minister give a time line when they are going to get this more directed approach, this more coordinated plan to deal with this particularly important part of information systems and the knowledge management system? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Mr. Rattray.

Thank you, Mr. Rattray. Mr. Miltenberger.