Mr. Speaker, recently there has been a decision to loan $34 million out of the Opportunities Fund. I’m personally not pleased that by this process it has been done without Members’ knowledge and we were always kept in the dark. I won’t get into the merits of should the money have been lent to this group, but more to the problem of why we weren’t informed earlier and what we are going to do in the future.

I feel, as many others feel, that we were kept in the dark until the contract was signed and all they were worried about was the official announcement and, oh, by the way, maybe we should inform the MLAs. By the time I found out, that decision had already been made and there was no room for discussion by process.

The Opportunities Fund, as many people know and have come to learn, is a fund to use to leverage federal dollars to make cash for this government. That sounds great to me, but a lending program like this should never operate under the cover of silence without Members being informed about a deal prior to the deal being finalized; not now and not ever.

Going forward, the Minister of ITI must realize that this whole Legislature is on the hook when a decision is made behind closed doors. Whether it goes good or bad, the results will fall on all our shoulders. This must end.

Oddly enough, we do have the tools to operate by better rules. We have the Financial Administration Act where we can find those rules and guidelines. I stand here today and clearly say that nothing can be better accomplished on this file than saying we will set rules in place to make sure this never happens again.

I do not want to hear that the Minister will do this again. I want to clearly hear that the Minister will not operate in isolation again. He may have had the power to do this, but perhaps he should have thought about the magnitude of this loan. That alone should have set off bells by saying maybe the Members should be informed. This must end.

Under section 67(1.1) of the Financial Administration Act they discuss loans of over $500,000 and giving Members 14-day notice. Under section 5, guarantees and indemnities and regulation, it talks about informing Members, giving them maximum liability information and proposed addendums. The rules exist; let’s start applying them.

I look forward to questions later today with this Minister and getting his full commitment that they

will not proceed with this type of loan in the future without contacting Members.