Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I just want to ask some questions, not on a specific item, although obviously reference will be made to it. On this issue of the government coming back to us to approve something that has been approved before in principle, I think that as a budgeting process that has to be reviewed.

Mr. Chairman, we have a rule in this House where normally we are not allowed to revisit things that have been decided on. We are not allowed to revisit a new motion unless it is to be rescinded. So why is it possible, why is that part of the process that a capital project as big as over $2 million, the government comes here, as I stated earlier, and they fight tooth and nail for every cent? It is almost impossible for us to move anything unless we delete something. They convince us that they have to do this. Every capital project is essential, it's needed, it makes sense, it has gone through the FMB process and we vote on it. So now we are told that the money that was approved because they needed it was just held back.

Mr. Chair, I can understand how for many projects the government needs to have flexibility. I can see if you want to build a school, because the materials couldn't get there, you couldn't get the barge. Some disastrous things happen. If that happens so that they have to lapse capital money, they couldn't build a road or whatever, they should come back to us and tell us why they couldn't spend that money. They shouldn't be allowed to just lapse it and come back and want us to re-approve the money that's already been approved, revisit the expenditure decision because of a political reason. That is the worst use of the power of this Assembly and the political capital we have. The Minister has indicated already that we should argue on the merit of the project, not on the process. I think we should argue about the opposite. I think the Minister, who is normally very sensible and has common sense and is rational about these things, if he could just take himself away from his support for this project I think he could see the wider view that there is something wrong with this process.

It wouldn't make any sense, Mr. Chair, for us to approve money to renovate a hospital in Inuvik and then they lapse the money and then come back for $2.6 million for us to redo what we have already done. When you are thinking about this project here, the centre in Yellowknife is only six years older than Hay River. I mean there is no merit on why this should be moved other than...and there's no problem with fixing Yellowknife any more than Hay River. They have been working on that thing for years, but for political reasons they put the money aside, they didn't spend it and they are saying well we're just asking you to redo your decisions. I don't understand why we have to do that. We don't have to do that for any other situation.

So not going into the specifics of the project, this is something that I've learned that just finally clicked for me in the last two days, that we as a Legislature can sit here and approve all of this money and yet we can have no confidence that that will be carried through. In fact, the government doesn't even have any reason. It can be for political reasons that they could move it. They don't have to tell us why they cannot renovate this building in Yellowknife. Maybe if they found that it would cost them $10 million to renovate it and we couldn't do it and they want to come back to us to re-approve it, there's nothing like that. They are asking us to approve the money that we had already approved to renovate a building that was constructed in 1961 and move it to a building that was constructed in 1957 in Hay River for exactly the same use and at exactly the same cost; incidentally for a lot more money than what it would cost to build a new building, which is another question altogether. It would cost less money for the government to build a new building in Yellowknife for this treatment centre, or Hay River, than the money suggested.

Another thing is this money was approved for $3.3 million. The cost estimate of the renovation was $3.3 million in 1997 and all of a sudden we are talking about $2.4 million which is a lot less. I think if the Minister could just take himself out of the thought that he supports this project because he has to or whatever reason, I think if he really looked at it I think he would have to agree that this doesn't make sense. Thank you.