Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As far as the gentlemen on the other side of the floor are concerned, we are all the same.
---Laughter
The capital planning process, Mr. Speaker, I, like my colleagues, would like to highlight some of the concerns we have with the supposedly new and improved capital acquisition process. If you go on the web site, Mr. Speaker, under capital acquisitions, you will find that the discussion begins something like this: "Commencing with the development of the capital acquisition plan for 02-03, the government has adopted a revised corporate capital planning process. The process allows for the allocation of available capital funding according to priority and need on a government-wide basis, as opposed to the prior process of allocating a capital budget target to individual departments." Mr. Speaker, it's hard to argue with that, but I think in the past, the public might suggest that the prior practice was simply of Cabinet sitting around and divvying up projects as horse trading exercises, Mr. Speaker. We all know this is a new time. We are new and improved. We are rehabilitated, as it were. We know we have limited resources and certainly not unlimited needs, insatiable wants. So, in theory, Mr. Speaker, this new process looks fine. But there is almost no way to clearly link this process to GNWT priorities. For that matter, Mr. Speaker, it's hard to define what our priorities are. We certainly can't look to the document we produced at the beginning of the Assembly, Towards a Better Tomorrow, to give us a documentation of our detailed priorities. It just doesn't do that. It's too vague and at too high a level. Mr. Speaker, without identifying these priorities, it's almost impossible to make a clear link between the capital process and our strategic priorities. If we are going to do anything, Mr. Speaker, step one has to be identifying our priorities in a clear manner and articulating them. Step two, Mr. Speaker, would be to apply ranking criteria to determine what projects should have highest priority. This would give us, and the public certainly, a transparent mechanism for scoring the projects. We would see how they stack up against other projects and this simply isn't the case right now, Mr. Speaker. As we know, and other Members have mentioned, currently this exercise is done by deputy ministers behind closed doors and it's not good, Mr. Speaker. Ministers on that side of the House have to be prepared to stand up and discuss the ranking and scoring of these projects with Members and with the public so that we can see where they compare. The lack of transparency just creates suspicion. It casts a shadow over the whole process, Mr. Speaker. When Regular Members ask for justification, at best we get a thick, technical assessment of a facility that purports to outline the shortfalls of that individual facility. But, Mr. Speaker, oftentimes it's about the size of a Toronto phonebook. This is not the same as a score sheet comparing a project against others on the basis of some agreed upon criteria. So, Mr. Speaker, if this truly is our objective, if it is not about patronage and not about pork-barrelling, we shouldn't be afraid to show it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
---Applause