Well, before we can, I think, make any decision on what we're doing here, we need to have that kind of information. I mean, this is like a very significant amount of money. I have to say that I thought Mr. McLeod's questions were excellent too. I mean, how can you say upgrade it to this code, but in two years...that just seems like a very arbitrary decision. In two years, those upgrades are no longer any good. What? Is the code going to change in two years? I mean, that's a very good point. Either the building is safe and it's up to code or it isn't. You know? It isn't, you know, we're just going to go a little ways and then everything is going to be fine. So unless the fire marshal's anticipating that the building's going to deteriorate further in the next two to four years...
But anyway, I go back to my point, Mr. Chairman. My point is that this is a wonderful opportunity. We do owe the people of Fort Simpson better than $3.5 million thrown into something that we're going to tear down in two years. The Minister says two to four years before we can get anything done, before we could even get a building plan. Again, another example, two to four years before you can get a building up? I mean, I'm telling you, as a matter of fact, I just went out to the Member's lounge and phoned a contractor and asked a question. How long reasonably would it take, you know, to build a building in Fort Simpson if the government went to tender for office space? Let me tell you, it wouldn't take two to four years. So again these are artificial, inflated, unreasonable numbers and time frames that the government puts around these things. I bet you could have a building designed that would be an asset to a community. You could probably get the local aboriginal development corporation involved; you probably could get the business community involved; you probably could get a private developer involved, and you could probably have this thing up and operational with ready to turn the key in the door in probably six to 12 months. Because you know on the upgrades I want to tell you something, there's going to be lead time on the upgrades. The $3.5 million, you just can't go out to tender for that unless you get all that work done. I mean to take the lead time, what it would take to put out the tenders for the upgrades is probably longer than it would take you to go to tender for the whole space and get somebody in the private sector to develop it. It would be a real economic boon to the community. It could get a whole lot of people who are in the contracting business involved in that, perhaps even to the region. So I'd like to ask the Minister if he would consider doing that. There is no way that I, for one, quoting the phrase from my good friend from the Mackenzie Delta, that I, for one, am going to support this. This is the irresponsible use of government money.
So lead time. Let's talk about lead time. If you're going to go to tender for upgrades, how long is it going to take you? Thank you.