Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m just trying to find out a little information through this next budgeting cycle. Has the Department of Public Works done any work to establish any office space in the Yellowknife core, either consolidating space or developing future space for some type of organization of some of the teams that the territorial government has throughout its system? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister McLeod. Sorry about that. Mr. Guy.

Thank you for that. Through that planning of your general office space, as you’ve pointed out for the record there, what type of work has been done to avoid market disruption? Has a study gone on and is that available for Members to take into consideration? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister McLeod or Mr. Guy? Mr. Guy.

When was that market analysis done and would the department be willing to offer a copy to Members? Thank you.

How far along is this general purpose office space? How far along is it within the system? Has a particular space -- and when I say “space,” I mean property, obviously -- been identified at this particular time and, if so, how large is that particular space? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Guy. Sorry about that. Minister McLeod.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, right now we’re at the planning stage. We have, I believe, some money earmarked towards that in a supp and we have looked at a number of options in terms of sites and have looked at building size and things of that nature, but we’re still fairly early in the review.

Mr. Chairman, has a particular size of the general office space been decided upon at this particular stage? If I hear the Minister correctly and the DM, that this project is sort of in the early stages, but has a particular size of a potential building been identified? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, the size of the building that we would like to bring forward is 6,000 square metres and it’s around the same size as the Laing Building, I believe. Thank you.

In the market disruption study process, Mr. Guy has mentioned it had been done over the last fiscal year. Obviously it’s pretty recent, it sounds. As many people would know, the Bellanca Building is coming to a point here very shortly that it will be empty and I’m just wondering, was that building taken into consideration, knowing that that building will be empty in about a year, year and a half. Was that considered in the market disruption study? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, yes, we took that into consideration. Thank you.

Is there anything that the Minister can speak to the size of the market, how it will change, or is that a better question for the Department of Executive? In essence, I want to get a sense of the type of impact this will have on the Yellowknife market at this particular time, knowing that potentially again -- we’re speaking potentially here -- of a new government office building and we also know that one commercial building is opening up very quickly here. So I’m trying to get a sense of the size and magnitude of shift in the market that may or may not happen. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, we can certainly point to the fact that the availability of office space has been practically zero in Yellowknife. The demand is certainly growing and

we feel this is a valued investment. It would help in many different ways and, yes, the people that are planning to have available office space are quite aware of what we’re doing. In fact, they are working on some of the aspects of this new building with us.

Oh, I’m sorry; I should correct that. I just had a correction here. They are working on another building that will be opening up office space.

I know, of course, every fiscal dollar is an important fiscal dollar that we have and it’s important to use it wisely. Has the Department of Public Works considered the potential opening up of the Bellanca Building in the next year, year and a half, to consider it in the context of would it suit their needs as opposed to building a new building for general purpose office space? Has that consideration or discussion happened at all?

I’m not speaking in the sense of I don’t want investment in our territorial economy; I’m just concerned of the market disruption this will play. One of the things the department needs to hear, from both my point of view as well as the market point of view, is that when we... You know, I don’t believe we’re in the business to make sure that every leased space is picked up, but what this does is puts a lot of small retail spaces at risk as well. So it’s that type of disruption when a larger space becomes available, it can have many devastating ripple effects on our small little leasing market in our community. So I just wanted to find out if the Department of Public Works has even had a discussion with them in the context of possibilities whereas that space may be suitable. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, we see this investment as a positive move; we see this as an ability to open up new office space. We also have had discussions with the people that the Member is referring to. The Member is aware, I believe, that the people who are going to have the available office space are building a new building to put the very offices that they have into this new office space. So there’s been discussion. I think most of the major players in Yellowknife are aware and have had some discussion at least with the concept if not some of the detail. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Nobody else on the list on asset management, operations expenditure summary, $81.946 million.

Page 7-18, asset management, active positions. Questions? Agreed?

Page 7-21, Technology Service Centre, operations expenditure summary, $1.361 million.