Thank you, Madam Chair. Where I am going with this is that the GNWT is the anchor tenant in most of Northview's building. It's in downtown Yellowknife. My understanding is that we built a new government building because we understood it was cheaper for us to own our buildings as opposed to leasing them from large southern REITs. My question is specific to class A commercial office spaces. Is it cheaper for us to own it than it is to lease it right now at market rates in Yellowknife? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Again, I am sorry to be just a broken record, but I do want to say that we look at these assets and how we acquire and how we dispose and how we do a lot of things on a case-by-case basis. You look at whether it makes sense for the government to lease versus build or purchase. It would all depend on assets, on the locations, some clients and timelines, on how we determine purchasing or leasing. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The current policy allows us to lease buildings off northern-owned landlords if we think we can pay an extra 10 percent on the cost of leasing. I think that is fair, and I don't mind paying a little bit more on leases of northern-owned buildings. I would note that I do not believe that the money we are paying the southern REITs, which is millions and millions of dollars, is actually cheaper than owning the buildings or cheaper than renting off a northern landlord. I question whether we are even in compliance with our leasing of improved real property policy. Can the Minister review our current leases and assess whether they are actually within the 10 percent as required by the policy? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am not quite familiar with the number of leases that we have. Perhaps it's quite a bit, given that the Department of Infrastructure is responsible for predominantly a lot of the leases for all the other government departments. I am going to give the assistant deputy minister a few minutes to pull that number, so if I can, to the assistant deputy minister.

Thank you. Mr. Brennan.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Yes. Thank you, Madam Chair. I will leave this for another time, but it's my view that being the anchor tenant in a bunch of southern REITs' buildings makes absolutely no sense. It does not align with supporting northern businesses, and if we are actually paying above what it would cost for us, we are spending extra money instead of owning the infrastructure. Either we should build it as a government or find actual northern landlords to give that money to, would be my preference. I will leave that as a comment, and I thank the department for their comments on that.

In the area of asset management, my understanding is that the Auditor General is working to create new public accounting standards and that, as part of this work, we will have to carry a liability on our books of what it would cost to essentially not just remediate our assets but to put them in landfills. I believe that work is coming on next year, when the public accounting standards are going to require us to carry a number in our books of what every single building costs to put into a landfill properly, which is a very, very large number, especially the cost in smaller remote communities. I believe we already carry a bit of a liability in regard to asbestos and hazardous materials but not a liability in regard to actually putting those buildings in landfills and the costs. I recognize that policy has not come into place yet, but I am wondering if asset management is involved in that work or if we have in the environment department here any sort of estimate of what that cost is or how they are involved with that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am going to get ADM Brennan to answer that.

Thank you. Mr. Brennan.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you. Minister, do you know?

What I can say is: when we were doing some of our capital work, we were looking. One of the Members sitting across from me had asked the question on deferred maintenance and what it would cost in terms of getting some of our assets up to a normal standard, and it was to the tune of $462 million to get some of our deferred assets up to par. If I can ask ADM Brennan if he wants to add anything further to that in terms of what is in the budget right now? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Mr. Brennan.

Thank you. Member, you ran out of time. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just to follow up a little further on what my colleague from Yellowknife North was saying, can you speak to: what does that mean, then, with respect to this new Auditor General liability? It's going to take some time, obviously, for the Northwest Territories to work on some of that liability. My question is: as regulations increase, they always seem to get stricter with time; what sort of financial impact does that have on us with that liability number we are now going to have to estimate? Do we anticipate it will just continue to increase as regulations get more stringent? Does that then force us to want to remediate some of our sites ahead of time and be more proactive? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Minister.