Page 7, Education, Culture and Employment, capital investment expenditures, education and culture, not previously authorized, negative $3.935 million, total department, negative $3.935 million. Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Part of our role as Regular Members is public accounts in terms of looking at cash flow and where money is coming from. This is another classic example where government, you know, you have to be very diligent on where monies are being taken from one area and put into another. I think this is another one of those negative supplementaries which is taking out of operations and now putting into capital expenditures for infrastructure.

I have a series of questions here pertaining to this amount of money. The first one is: When was the initial estimate established for the demolition of the Sir Alexander Mackenzie School, or in this case here for this supp?

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I would have to commit to get that from Public Works and Services. I don’t have the specific date when the first estimate was done.

It will make the next couple questions that much more difficult, but I guess in my assessment and from getting background information, this original estimate was some time ago. It was not something that just happened overnight. They would have had an assessment.

What was used as a determining point as to what this amount of demolition would have been from the original estimate? Is there a market escalator that was used to determine that amount of money?

Mr. Aumond.

Madam Chair, if we can get maybe a little bit more information as to what type of confidence was put into that estimate. As, typically, market escalators are used from an original estimate and I guess brought into the future in terms of what that number could be today, can we get some insight as to what tools, what actuaries or any type of assessments were used to come up with a prediction of what this demolition would be in today’s dollars?

Madam Chair, I guess the question is, we put it to tender and we let the market decide what it is. That is one of the methodologies used. The concern I have is that this demolition amount and the taking from one pot of money and moving it to another pot of money and using it for another project, some of the substantiation sheets that we went through as Ministers and as well as Members, some differ in the amount that we see here today. Again, I am not at liberty to say what that lesser number was, but it was a lesser number than what we see here today in the supplementary appropriation bill.

Is there a rationale as why we were given in committee a lesser number and why we are seeing a higher number today? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Minister.

Madam Chair, I would ask if the Member would give me the number, I would be able to get you an answer.

We are not really supposed to make reference in the House to documents, and numbers, and information that were before committee. We can certainly speak to what is here. I believe it to be a genuinely interesting question, but I am hesitant to start digging out committee documents for reference. Mr. Miltenberger.

Madam Chair, can I ask the Member to give me the number, how

much more or less it is than the numbers before us, without quoting the exact number?

---Laughter

Mr. Dolynny.

Madam Chair, the ballpark is roughly $600,000. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Mr. Aumond.

The rationale for the question is that for probably one thing it shows is that the Members actually look at the numbers. Number two, when you have a delta or a quantum of that magnitude, it begs to ask the question as to why. I think that’s why we’re in Committee of the Whole. I do have some concerns that if a topic of discussion is being discussed in preparation for this type of venue, I’m a bit concerned that we are talking about a delta here and I really don’t have much more to say, other than the fact that I’m a bit disappointed that I’m seeing a number here today and discussions that occurred had a separate number entirely. No other further questions, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. Education, Culture and Employment, capital investment expenditures, education and culture, not previously authorized, negative $3.935 million, total department, negative $3.935 million. Agreed?

Moving onto Transportation. Transportation, capital investment expenditures, highways, not previously authorized, $2 million, total department, $2 million. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know the major project under consideration here. We’ve had some discussion in the House on it already today. I’d like to ask what is the total amount expended on this project to date over the current and previous fiscal years not including this amount.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Miltenberger.