Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you, colleagues, and I thank the Minister for his comments. Again, we’re spending $20 million, but I believe we’re going to be coming back here in the next short while wondering where the money went. I have to state that due process was not followed in this case. From the Minister’s comments today he doesn’t know what the terms of the leases are in the Inuvik region. Are they month to month? Are they one year? Are they five years? Are they ten year leases? Without that information, you can’t tell me that the government will remain in those facilities in the near future. Without having a plan by way of a market disruption plan to understand what the implications of this will be over the next five, ten or 20 years…. Due diligence wasn’t done in that context.
I think it is important that this government realizes, as we hear time and time again in this House, that we do not have the dollars or the resources to do what we’d like. I know, for Members who come from small communities, we see the situation in our facilities where you walk into a principal’s office and there are buckets on the floor or pots throughout the school because of leaking roofs. Mould is now appearing in our public facilities. Yet we’re going
ahead with a $20 million and in some cases it looks like a $25 million project, if you look at the numbers.
I think it’s important to realize that as Members of this Legislature we are responsible to protect the public purse. I know that it’s important to realize that we do need to make some tough decisions. We also have to realize that there are going to be implications to this decision when we’ll have to consider our deficit elimination process in the next couple months and in the years ahead. I believe that we have to do justice to the people of the Northwest Territories when we’re spending $20 million on this type of capital, realizing we’re not in a stable market in regard to what’s going on with the economy and, more importantly, what’s going on in Canada and the rest of the world. I don’t think we’re immune to that.
We can sit in here and talk about outhouses in downtown Yellowknife, but we don’t have the resources to do it. I think we have these challenges where we have such a dismal situation with regard to the health and well-being of our residents that we are now seeing homelessness on our streets, people having to go to food banks. I think that’s the reality of the day that we’re seeing here in the Northwest Territories. It wasn’t that way a number of years ago.
I think it’s important to realize that by spending money foolishly by way of this project, it will have a major implication on this project. All this motion asks for is that the government step back, do the market disruption analysis, get back to committee in January and let us know what your findings are.
Also, ensure that the government does a technical evaluation of what the facilities are that our government owns at the present time, find out what the status is of those facilities, and do a technical evaluation and report back to standing committee. That’s all this motion asks for: that the government take the time and do due diligence in regard to its responsibility not only to this Legislature but also to the people of the Northwest Territories, who we are solely responsible to.
I’d like to ask the Members to consider this motion, and I’d ask for a recorded vote.