There’s already been, in the area of technical upgrades in prior years, $8 million spent, and I believe they’re still going through a renovation in the emergency area of the hospital. I can appreciate your argument — the underbelly of the hospital and the air-handling systems and all that. But if you don’t know what the utilization and the space requirements are going to be in that hospital unless you do a master plan, why are we spending all this money? I’m not arguing against spending capital dollars at that hospital, because they’re needed, but the master plan should come first. That’s fundamental to my argument. Why do anything unless you have a master plan?

I understand what the Member’s saying. I think I asked the same questions before, when I was sitting there. I have learned, since then, that the master development plans for hospitals are much more complicated than I had thought.

Also, we have had experiences at Stanton where a previous master development plan that was done was way in excess of what we could reasonably afford. I’m working closely with the DM and the authority to make sure the new master development plan that’s being proposed is reasonable and is within the demands of those critical areas.

I’m not sure when that will be — when that master development plan will be approved. I do know this technical upgrade has been started already. It’s already two years into that plan. We need to continue to move through with that upgrade.

I know the Minister and her staff had mentioned that the RFP has gone out and work has started on this master development plan, but I don’t see any money in the ’08–09 budget for that master development plan. I’m wondering where the department’s actually finding that money.

Again, I want to get back to that $17.5 million figure. What portion of that is for the contractor — for the consultant who’s going to be doing the work? And what portion of that $17.5 million is for actual implementation of recommendations of that master plan?

So to the $17.5 million: how much is the consultant going to cost to put together the master plan? And what part of the $17.5 million is for implementation of recommendations flowing out of that master development plan?

Mr. Chairman, the consultant fee, I understand, is $250,000. I can’t tell you what part of the recommendations will be part of this cost. I could tell you that we have to work really hard to make sure the master development plan recommendations fit into the dollar amount allocated here.

Thank you, Minister Lee. Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have to put this on the record, here. This is nice to talk about all these capital projects, but I have to, for the record, ask how Stanton and Fort Smith managed to get ahead of Hay River on the capital bandwagon here when Hay River’s been in the works for a longer period of time. I have to ask the Minister that.

Mr. Cummings.

I’ve had a fair amount to say in the past about the condition at Stanton, but it

wasn’t really structural stuff. It was kind of more cosmetic and more peripheral stuff.

It’s very interesting. You go to Stanton, you walk in there, you take the elevator up — hey, the elevator works! — and you go to the rooms and they seem to work. It’s really amazing that a facility that looks kind of functional and normal and clean — no, I take that back — needs a $27 million upgrade. It isn’t readily obvious. It looks like it could use a paint job. It looks like it could use a good cleaning. But it’s amazing to me….

What sort of precipitates this? Are we living in luxury land, here? Is there a way to make this facility work? Or are these really pressing things? I heard a whole list of things that just shocked me — change the elevators? Elevators are hugely expensive things. What’s wrong with the elevators we’ve got? We’ve got other communities — small communities that are out there just desperate for capital infrastructure — and we’re taking a building that looks fairly functional, it seems like it meets the needs of delivering the health programs it’s intended to deliver, and yet we seem like we’re maybe pre-empting something by spending this money in advance. It just seems extravagant.

Minister Lee.

I think there’s always a danger for health-care facilities to cross a threshold into being extravagant. People want to plan for the future, and they build a state-of-the-art facility that costs a lot of money. I have heard figures as much as $200 million to renovate Stanton Territorial Health Authority.

I have to tell you that would not happen under my watch. We are working really closely with the public administrator to make sure this master development plan is focused on the seven areas we have been talking about.

It’s about function. It’s about the programs they will provide. I would like to commit to the Members that as soon as I get the master development plan project submitted to me, I’ll come and make that presentation. There will be no extravagance or extra, but we do need to address the emergency unit, medical daycare, ICU. I can’t remember all the other seven areas, but I’ve been saying them a number of times. There are seven critical areas we need to address.

I think that by most standards almost anywhere in the world, if you went to a remote location like the Northwest Territories and found 42,000 inhabitants, then you looked around at our capital infrastructure.... If you looked at buildings like this and buildings like the museum across the way — even getting into the small communities.... If you look at schools, and you look

at all the infrastructure out there, I would say that it would be fairly amazing.

Now, if we really didn’t have any money — obviously, we have lots of money.... If we were really strapped for money, would we be figuring out more innovative ways to make an infrastructure like Stanton work for us without spending millions and millions of dollars?

Yes, we are. We have to watch our money, and we are doing that. We are looking at all the suggestions that Members in this House have made: the possibility of moving some of the office space out; how to make the hospital safe; use for hospital space as much as possible.

I’ve gone to inquire about whether we could, somehow, use the…. There’s a whole section there where they store things right behind the emergency unit. I’m asking whether that could be turned into emergency unit space. I mean, I’m just talking like MLAs here are to make sure we stay realistic about this master development plan. It’s not a huge, long, extravagant plan, but it’s functional. And it’s one that needs to address some of the issues, because I’ve been getting queries from not just the Yellowknife Members but from lots of other Members about the space issues at the hospital. We need to address those.

Thank you, Minister Lee. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m just wondering, as I look at this $46 million at Stanton, if there’s an energy expert who will be reviewing this just to ensure the efficiencies and benefits of energy efficiency and energy conservation.

Minister Lee.

I don’t know that. Right now I’ve got Mr. Deputy Minister to ask — when he next meets with them, after the development people — that he inquire about that.

That’s fine. Thank you.

Thank you,

Mr. Bromley. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank

you, Mr. Chairman.

The

Minister doesn’t have to supply this information now, but I’d be interested to see what information the department has on what that $17.5 million breaks down into — what we’re going to get for that at the end of the day. Even though it’s years away, I think the department probably has a good idea of where that money is going to be spent.

I’d like to, as well, get some information on the technical upgrades — what’s happened there to date, and what the money in future years is going to

be used for specifically. I don’t need that information right now. I could get that later.

Minister Lee.

We’ll get all the specifics.