One of the other concerns that I have in the briefing I received is the government’s assessment that we need to keep a certain percentage ownership versus rental. They referred to a lot of southern numbers. I’d like to just ask the department if they actually considered the cost of doing business in the North, which would be quite a bit higher and that we’re probably pretty close to where we should be as far as the ratios. Those people who do lease from us do have a lot more costs in their operations. Did the department look into that?

So, for my clarification, we never looked into future departments’ needs in the upcoming years. These office spaces that we’re clearing out, potentially may be clearing out, may be filled in by other departments that are squeezed right now.

This government being fairly new, I guess, has the department looked at the new priorities of this government? Namely, decentralization and some of the effects that that would have on office demands in the Yellowknife area.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. This particular project, of course, as you know, is a preapproved project from the last Assembly. The priorities and goals and objectives of this 17th Assembly will definitely take into effect

as we move forward on the new projects within the 17th Assembly government, for sure.

I guess in closing I don’t have any questions, but I do have concerns with this project. This government has indicated, and discussed it last Assembly as well, that decentralization was an issue and they’re still looking to increase – from what I can tell – more office space in Yellowknife area, which from what I understand doesn’t seem to discuss anything about decentralization and they’re not willing to discuss that at all. I have a problem with the fact that government is getting into where the private sector should be involved. Being a pure businessman, I guess, and now a politician, I have a problem with a lot of this issue. Thank you for your time.

We agree that we need to take those goals and priorities into consideration and we are mindful of the cost factor, as well, when it comes to leasing. There has been an increase of 40 percent. We have to find ways of cost savings. This, again, is preapproved from the previous government. Now the 17th Assembly will

be mindful of what the Member is referring to. He has brought up his concerns and issues, and even transferring the positions into the region has been talked about as part of our goals. We’ll have to be mindful of that within the departments.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. We’ll go on to questions from Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to follow up and thank Mr. Hawkins for his support. I, of course, did not mention anything about selling art; I talked about display and exhibition of art. Nor did I mention anything about free space. I, in fact, mentioned that Heritage Canada is interested in partnering and paying for this infrastructure. I just wanted to express my appreciation for his support there on my main points.

I think there’s been a good discussion on this need for a good policy. One of the priorities for this government is diversification of our economy and I think it’s well understood that the arts are a real opportunity to make progress on that diversification. Certainly featuring, displaying, promoting arts is a real opportunity, given that they typically don’t have the infrastructure themselves. It’s on that basis that I think we would like to see a policy.

I appreciate the Minister’s suggestion that the Executive would be the appropriate one for this. I guess I would just like to ask the Minister if he would take this forward to the Executive and seek this sort of policy for new GNWT infrastructure from now on across the NWT at 1 percent or something like that in support of the arts.

I think, although I did not ask for free space in the infrastructure in Yellowknife, I think in some of our

small communities where they don’t have many opportunities at all it would not be out of line to consider providing free space for the display of arts in our government infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Any response from the Minister? Mr. Lafferty.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. When it comes to partnership, of course, Heritage Canada has been very proactive with partnering with the GNWT on various partnership and cooperation agreements and contributions. We also work closely with NGOs for them to find spaces. That doesn’t necessarily have to be within GNWT buildings as well. I already did commit to the Members that a priority discussion that we can have at the Cabinet level is this whole art space area. When we talk about that, it’s also 1 percent increase cost to the factor as well. We’ll have to keep mindful of that. We are talking about additional space to what we have. I did commit already that this will be brought forward as our discussion.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. No further questions. Page 5-4, Public Works and Services, activity summary, asset management, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $5.976 million. Agreed?

Page 5-7, Public Works and Services, activity summary, Technology Service Centre, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $1.405 million. Agreed?

Page 5-10, Public Works and Services, activity summary, petroleum products division, infrastructure investment summary, total infrastructure investment summary, $3.86 million. Agreed? Mr. Bromley, question?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I had indicated I would like to follow up on the specifics by division and so I will here, very briefly.

The proposal for a tank farm to increase capacity and upgrade, code upgrade, and I understand there are some serious challenges, structure challenges that need to be corrected in this community. I’m happy to see that work being undertaken. But I do want to stress again that there are opportunities to avoid the costs of in this case doubling the storage capacity and, of course, with that, the ongoing costs of forever trying to meet the new environmental standards and so on.

The community of Tulita has winter road access. It’s directly on the Mackenzie River. It’s one of the easiest communities to deliver to, of course. It’s a

real, perfect opportunity for reducing our use of fossil fuels. It’s surrounded by forest and they could use the jobs, I’m sure. I can check with my colleague on that, but I bet they could use the jobs in that community. This is a real opportunity where, again, this project demonstrates the high cost of ongoing, and increasing and predictable costs of relying on fossil fuels when we clearly have some alternatives that are available. Those are not solely, of course, the responsibility of this department. This department is helping in that direction, but I think the Minister is answering for the government so I have to ask this question: Why aren’t we avoiding these costs? And while I’m at it, what are the costs of doubling this infrastructure in terms of capacity volume both for gasoline and for diesel versus the cost that’s maybe in a percentage term versus the cost that’s being put to upgrade it to proper code level? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. We’ll go over to Mr. Guy.