Mr. Chairman, all of this money, the $2,250,000 will be spent on Highway No. 3. As part of the Strategic Highway Infrastructure Program, all of the money has to be spent on the national highway system. Highway No. 1 and Highway No. 3 are part of our national system. Thank you.
Debates of Oct. 28th, 2002
This is page numbers 1197 - 1230 of the Hansard for the 14th Assembly, 5th Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was chairman.
Topics
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Thank you. Transportation, investment expenditures, highways, not previously authorized, $2,250,000.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Total department, not previously authorized, $2,250,000.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
Some Hon. Members
Agreed.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Page 27, Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, capital investment expenditures, resource management and economic development, not previously authorized, $396,500. Mr. Dent.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I know that the standing committee has written the Minister asking that the new draft Business Incentive Policy not be implemented without further consultation. Do we actually need this $50,000 unless we are going to implement the policy?
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Thank you. Minister Handley.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, this money is meant to help set up a better system for tracking all of the BIP contracts and contractors. I think whether we improve BIP or not, we would still need to improve on our tracking system.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Thank you. Mr. Dent.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have always been surprised at how long it takes us to get out our quarterly contracts listing, or our annual contracts listing. This $215,000 is this going to purchase a database program that will enable us to get the information out on a more timely basis?
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Thank you. Mr. Handley.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
Joe Handley Weledeh
Yes, Mr. Chairman, it is meant to help us do that, primarily to address accountability and transparency issues that we need to make improvements on.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1226
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Thank you. Mr. Dent.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1227
Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you. We seem to be running as much as six months behind in getting out the quarterly contract listings. What sort of an improvement in the timetable can we expect with this expenditure? Can we expect to see the contracts listing come out within a month after the end of the quarter?
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1227
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Thank you. Mr. Voytilla.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1227
Voytilla
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This particular project does not relate to the payments over $5,000 report which is the one I think that the Member is referring to. The payments over $5,000 report is a report done by the FMBS from our financial information system database. We download from that database and restructure it to produce that report.
One of the reasons the report takes a little bit longer is because we have refined the payments categorization. Now when you get the report you will notice that it is broken down in much more detail as to the nature of the contracts, or nature of the payments, whether they are southern, northern as was our tradition but now we have got into a lot more of a finer analysis, hopefully to enhance the usability and the meaningfulness to the reader.
It does take us a little bit more time to generate that information.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1227
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Thank you. Mr. Dent.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1227
Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that we are going to get more information, I think that is important, but timeliness is also essential. Is there nothing we can do to improve the timeliness of the reports we would get? That would be the first question. There is a second question that I wanted to ask, this $215,000, is this fees to customize existing software or is this to purchase new software, sort of off the shelf database stuff that would probably provide us the information we need fairly easily?
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1227
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Thank you. Mr. Voytilla.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1227
Voytilla
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The first part of the Member's question is that we would expect to see the time lines shrink on producing the revised payments over $5,000 report, simply because the latest one was the first time we had gone through the extra refinement on the information content, and it took us a bit longer than we had hoped to be able to do the work. Now that we have a process and a system in place, we expect the future reports to come out much more timely.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1227
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Thank you. Mr. Dent.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1227
Charles Dent Frame Lake
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And to the second part of the question, which was is this new software or a revision to existing software?
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1227
The Chair Leon Lafferty
Thank you. Mr. Handley.
Committee Motion 37-14(5): That The Premier Submit His Resignation Forthwith As Premier And Member Of The Executive Council (defeated)
Item 19: Consideration In Committee Of The Whole Of Bills And Other Matters
Page 1227
Joe Handley Weledeh
Mr. Chairman, it is a new system, but we are not clear whether they intend to build it or buy it, so I really cannot answer the question.