Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I have some more questions on this item. First of all, I have questions about the use of special warrant. My last question last Friday dealt with this issue because my understanding of special warrant is an expenditure of something that is of an emergency nature. Given that this premise that the government has leased for this legal aid office is not in any way being renovated or opening, and given that we just had session in June...
I only have 10 minutes so I don't want to use up all the time, but from a commonsense point of view, we understand when there is an oil tank that is deteriorating that is causing environmental disaster consequences and Sachs Harbour might warrant a special warrant expenditure. A roof collapsing in Inuvik warrants a special warrant expenditure, but a second legal aid office in a shopping mall somehow doesn't seem to be something that should fit under this. So that is one of my concerns.
Another one has to do with sole source contract. Minister Roland and I have been going back and forth in the House about this as well as outside of here. The government seems to be arguing that when two proposals came in on time but did not meet the criteria and the third one didn't meet the time criteria, but when it was found that that business might have some space to offer, under the government's guidelines it is completely appropriate for the government to get into a sole source contract negotiation with this business without having to either re-advertise or to go wider yet to figure out if there might be other suitable offices.
I have a problem with that sort of sole source contract. Going beyond that, if you go to any other legal aid clinic in many other places in the country, it is usually rented out of law offices. It is usually located where the people are. I don't know. I think this government has failed in looking at some other options that could have actually helped NGOs in paying for their operating costs. I have a problem with where this is located because I don't think it will guarantee the privacy of the clients. In fact, Minister Roland's information to the Members has stated very clearly that the client, the legal aid office, had a question about the privacy issue. In fact, it was agreed that the landlord would agree to give the windows a frosting treatment. I have a problem with the government spending money to lease somewhere where the storefront office glass is obviously a problem and that government is willing to spend extra money to give window treatment to that when I am sure there would have been other places that they could have looked into. I have lots of questions. I am going to go item by item to the Minister.
Lastly, on this opening statement, I want to say that it has been a long time since the legal aid budget got any kind of increase. This is the first time I have seen any significant amount of increase in this budget. I want to commend the Minister of Justice for that. I think it is very unfortunate that we seem to be on our way to blowing the budget on renovation and spending money where we wouldn't have had to if there were some more thought put into this. My first question, Madam Chair, is what are the rules for special warrant generally? I don't want an hour's treatise on that, but what are the main requirements for special warrant, and how does this expenditure meet that requirement? Thank you.