Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to offer a few general comments. First off, I just want to take this opportunity to put it on record that when a Member or myself especially raises questions about contracting process, I don't mean in any way to diminish or underestimate or undervalue the importance of the sound contracting process, and we do not want to see any safety or quality issues compromised. I just want to make sure that my concerns, if I bring them up, are based on fairness and openness of the process. So I just want to leave it at that.
The second thing I do want to say is on the TSC issue. I'm not saying that just because a person who is in charge is here, but I do want to commend the department for a real good job that was done in rolling that program out. I don't know; I haven't seen a survey on anything...maybe I did see some on what the people feel about how the new, the network program we have, I think I may have seen some and I think the ratio was quite high. But as for me, personally as a user and someone who has been in and out of the government system for at least 21 years when a long time ago we didn't even have an e-mail. I think we had to get into HP system to see. Only some people had access to e-mail. Then for a long time before this new program rolled out, really it was not practical or useful to access government e-mail because you couldn't open most of the documents. For people like us or many people out there who are travelling or they are in different regions or different parts of the country on business, or even if you wanted to access your e-mail at work, it really is helping a lot.
So obviously it's a real improvement on the program, but I think the credit has to be given to how it was rolled out, because I think there was a lot of prep work done to prepare all the users on how it's going to be done and who was going to get it first. So I think we are always quick to note on what doesn't get done right and focus on the problem areas, but I have always...I remember going through a lot of briefings with the previous Minister on this initiative and I really thought that it was carried out really well, so I do want to commend the department and the staff and the Minister who are involved with that.
There was just one more issue that I wanted to comment on and I think it's something that I've mentioned already in question period today, and that has to do with this exciting new project. That's another thing. Often, I think, I'm never shy for pointing out problem areas and the shortfalls that the government has to address, but sometimes I don't think government does even enough to sell what they do good and what they do well, and I have actually pointed out things to other Ministers about some of the things that the government is doing that they should spend more time talking about, and that project I think is what's going on at the North Slave Correctional Centre and that pellet boiler system. I remember watching that and thinking how come we didn't know anything about that? Our Standing Committee on Social Programs oversees the work of
Justice, but maybe that was briefed in DPW. But I do want to just state for the record again that I think that's a very exciting project. I think we should be proud of the fact that that is the first one in North America as a test case, but it's something that is very suitable to us because we are so far away from the source of fuel and diesel distribution systems. We do have a capacity to have a sawmill operation, so maybe years down the road we could be involved in manufacturing those pellets. I don't mean that we should all go out and change our major heating systems to pellets instantly, but the GNWT is one of the biggest builders of the Territories. I would like to see the government really focus on the next major project, whether it's a school or government building or something, to really work to incorporate this option in part of the plan to see if we can expand the use of that and gradually, if it turns out successful, make this as a viable option to our heating system. I don't know all the details of this operation and I'd like to get more detail on that. But from what I saw and heard, I really do see a lot of downside and I'd like to encourage the Minister to...(inaudible)...that. Those are my general comments. Thank you.