Thanks, Mr. Chairman. Well, that makes me feel a lot better — only 37,000 square feet.

I think it is incumbent on the government — if they want to spring an office building into the capital plan at the eleventh hour that’s not even in the five year capital plan and want to drop this into the mix basically with no notice

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to make very compelling

arguments for why they need this money to build this new office building in Inuvik. I think they have failed the test in terms of making that argument. I hear a lot of information, but saying that there isn’t a single location in Inuvik with 37,000 square feet…. Well, surprise, surprise. That is a small town. What small town has 37,000 square feet of space sitting waiting to be rented to the government? What small town has 37,000 square feet of office space in one location?

I don’t think the analysis has been done. I don’t think the assessments have been done. I think the economy is such in Inuvik right now — if I could be so…. I’m not there personally, but I think that things are perhaps in a bit of a holding pattern right now, waiting to see what’s going to happen with the pipeline. I think there aren’t a lot of private companies probably looking for space right now that the government may vacate, just because I understand that the level of activity is not what it normally is in Inuvik right now. There may be better timing for the government to build 37,000 square feet of office space than there is right now.

I guess also, to the issue of fairness and distribution of capital dollars, it would be nice to collocate 37,000 square feet of people and services in one building in Inuvik, but is it absolutely necessary? I mean, in all towns — and even in Yellowknife — government services and offices are distributed throughout the community. It’s never been a mandate or a policy of this government to try to collocate a whole lot of different activities into one building.

If there is such a savings and such a good argument to be made for building this in Inuvik and for having all of this under one roof, that argument will still be good next year, you know, as opposed to renting from the private sector. That argument will still be good next year. I don’t have any qualms about deferring this project until there’s been a full assessment done. I mean, we’re talking about…. People need room to spread out, and they need comfort and they’re in old buildings.

Well, like I said before, let me tell you about an old building in Hay River where it’s not comfortable and

we’re trying to educate children. You know, teachers have to go to work, too, and they have to work in circumstances that are not good. So the business of this being an old building doesn’t really…. Old building? Some government employees in old buildings doesn’t really have a big impact on me.

I mean, if there’s an issue of safety, that’s different. If there’s an issue of security, that’s different. Our highest priority when our capital projects are prioritized is the protection of people. I haven’t heard of any health or safety threats to the folks that are distributed around various locations in Inuvik. I understand the Perry Building, perhaps on the higher floors, has been condemned, for lack of a better word

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it’s not accessible

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but I’m not so

certain that the ground floor has the same kinds of issues.

Like I said, there could be very, very good reasons for this, but I don’t feel that the case has been made for this coming onto the capital plan the way it did and just being so urgent that we have to move on it right now. I would rather defer it by a year. If the arguments are very good, they’ll still be good a year from now.

I don’t really have any questions about it. I think, you know, Mr. Krutko has done a very good job of sort of canvassing the issues. The fact that there are 120 million bucks, probably, in capital going into Inuvik this year, and now we want to put another in excess of $20 million into Inuvik…. I think there are a lot of other regions, a lot of other communities that are also interested in capital in their communities, in their regions. I don’t think we need to overload Inuvik with a hundred and whatever it turns out to be — $150 million in capital.

There is an issue of fairness and distribution and equity. I think it’s the role of this government to ensure they assess all the needs and spread things out and pace development in one community in such a way that the local economy can even pick up and absorb and benefit from some of that development. You have too much going on in one community at one time. What happens is you end up having to import your trades and import a lot of your labour. If you pace that over a period of time, I think it’s more beneficial to the community as well.

Anyhow, for me, Mr. Chairman, I haven’t heard the compelling argument that needs to be made to pass the test of this being an urgent capital project to come onto our books and be supported at this time. That’s my position on it. It’s more of a comment than any question.