Mr. Chairman, I've been a Member of this Assembly for almost three full terms and I've been part of many processes where grandstanding is part of the game plan or part of the process to draw more attention to it. The fact is, Public Works is not putting this House in this position. Public Works has done work for a client department. The client department has worked with the community and there has been no satisfactory result or a decision made at that point. The fact is, the client department in charge of the project would have to make decisions and would have to bring that project to the table. Education, Culture and Employment has now brought that project to the table. It will now be put into the mix for dollars to be identified. Even if it was to be a leased facility, we would still have to identify the dollars for that leased facility. If it's going to be our own facility, we have to come up with...still identify the dollars but come up with the capital up front.
Mr. Chairman, I don't know what else we can say to this. The fact that, admittedly, the process that was used in trying to incorporate the wishes of the community by the department and the requests of the client department back to Public Works for further work was done. Unfortunately, we end up in this position. So it's not Public Works that's putting Members in this position. It's been the fact that the government's tried to work department to department with the community and, unfortunately, has run itself out of time in not making a decision. That decision has now been made and the client department is now requesting those funds to proceed at a minimum with this.
If the Members don't like the process, disagree with what's been done, I can't go back and turn the clock back to a decision that was made four years ago, or why it wasn't made four years ago or five years ago. All I can do is speak to it when we've been involved, and the processes we've tried to put in place.
If the Members wanted the exact square footage and I had advance notice of that through our previous discussions, I would have had them at the table, yes. I was aware of some concerns, requested the client department to come back with more detail, I've tried to provide that to Members.
Ultimately, yes, we're in a bad spot. The client department has come forward, requested money to keep this facility in use until we can get new office space in play. Whether we go down to a private developer to put that space in, we still need the money and authority from this House. So at minimum, we need to keep the department in space that they occupy right now and then we can get to the next stage.
Unfortunately, yes, hindsight is 20/20. If I had the opportunity to advise the Minister-of-the-day to say make a decision today so we can get on with it, get it in the capital plan, that would have been done. We are in a position now where a decision needs to be made and this House will make that decision and we will have to live by it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.