Hon. James McCrae (Government House Leader): Madam Speaker, I have a number of housekeeping matters related to the business of the House. I would like to obtain the unanimous consent of the House, notwithstanding the sequence for consideration of Estimates as outlined in Sessional Paper 142 tabled on March 24, 1998, and subsequently amended, to consider in Room 255 the Estimates of the Children and Youth Secretariat following completion of the Estimates of the Department of Housing. This change is to apply until further notice.
Madam Speaker: Is there unanimous consent of the House to alter the sequence for the consideration of Estimates in Room 255 for the Estimates of the Children and Youth Secretariat to follow the completion of the Estimates of the Department of Housing, this change to apply until further notice? [agreed]
Mr. McCrae: I wish to obtain the unanimous consent of the House, notwithstanding the sequence for consideration of Estimates as outlined in Sessional Paper 142 tabled on March 24, 1998, and subsequently amended, to consider in Room 254 the Estimates of the Department of Finance following completion of the Estimates of the Department of Government Services. This change is to apply until further notice.
Madam Speaker: Is there unanimous consent of the House to change the sequence for consideration of Estimates in Room 254 to allow the Department of Finance to follow the completion of the Department of Government Services Estimates, this change to apply until further notice? [agreed]
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Mr. McCrae: I believe yesterday the House gave its consent to waiving private members' hour today, but we also went on to talk about what would happen tomorrow, that being Thursday, and I think we talked about the potential or the possibility of having private members' hours tomorrow morning, but there have been further discussions, and instead of doing that, there seems to be some agreement that we should deal with bills for the two hours between 10 and noon tomorrow morning and thereafter it would be the intention to proceed to the consideration of the Estimates. We are getting close to the end of the Estimates, and I know that this will be a great disappointment for the Leader of the Opposition (Mr. Doer) and perhaps one or two others. I do not know anybody else, though. We will look at the situation respecting private members' hour tomorrow afternoon at some point tomorrow.
I would move, seconded by the honourable Minister of Labour (Mr. Gilleshammer), that Madam Speaker do now leave the Chair, and the House resolve itself into a committee to consider of the Supply to be granted to Her Majesty.
Motion agreed to.
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Mr. Chairperson (Gerry McAlpine): Order, please. Will the Committee of Supply please come to order. This afternoon this section of the Committee of Supply meeting in Room 254 will resume consideration of the Estimates of the Department of Government Services. When the committee last sat, unanimous consent had been granted to have all questions and answers considered under line 8.1.(e) Information Technology Services.
Mr. Jim Maloway (Elmwood): At the outset, I would like to ask the minister if he has any of the information that was asked for at previous sittings.
Hon. Frank Pitura (Minister of Government Services): I think the last time we sat I indicated to the honourable member that we were at least within a week to two weeks of getting most of the information that you wanted back, so I trust that he will have patience with us until the time he gets that information.
Mr. Maloway: Could the minister explain in detail the relationship between his department and the Department of Finance as it relates to things like the Y2K problem, as it relates to things such as the computer contracts, the flow of money for the computer contracts?
Mr. Pitura: I am advised that the chief information officer, the CIO, has the overall responsibility for information technology issues right across the provincial government. The four areas that are basically addressed under the CIO is the area of better systems, better methods, desktop, and the year 2000.
So different groups are in charge of implementing the different initiatives. For the part that Government Services and the role that Government Services plays, we are involved with the implementation of the desktop. The other three areas are found nested in different committees under the CIO.
Mr. Maloway: How long has this arrangement been in place? How long has the chief information officer been in charge of these areas?
Mr. Pitura: At the outset of this process, which would go back a couple of years, the Information Technology Review officer was couched in the Treasury Board area. Starting in January of 1998, a chief information officer was put into place which then took the position out of Treasury Board and placed it under the Information Technology area as a chief information officer.
Mr. Maloway: So the chief information officer then would be in charge of dealing with the payments for the purchase of the computers? The chief officer would be involved in the financing of the computer contract, would he or she?
Mr. Pitura: The one-time cost associated with purchasing of the computer hardware is being financed through the organized corporation that is called GISMO that we talked about the other day, and so the funding is coming through that corporation for the purchase of the hardware.
Mr. Maloway: Could the minister describe the operation of GISMO as to when it was set up, who the board of directors are, and how it is operating at the current time?
Mr. Pitura: I think that the best advice I can give my honourable friend on this is that that would be a question that would be best asked of the Department of Finance as this corporation is under their purview.
Mr. Maloway: The reason we are doing it this way though is that in a way I would like to have both departments in the same room at the same time, because my previous experience has been such that when you go to Finance, they refer you back to Government Services. When you go to Government Services, they refer you to Finance. It seems to me that the two groups are simply conspiring together to hide the information. No one wants to accept responsibility for any of this information, it has been my experience, so that is why I would like to find out exactly what it is you know about GISMO and how it operates before we go into Finance and ask the same questions.
Mr. Pitura: My main role as Minister of Government Services and having the responsibility for the Desktop Management initiative is from the standpoint that there is sufficient financing, financial dollars or dollars available to make the purchases of the hardware and that these dollars will flow from the departments to Government Services in regard to the supply of the hardware to their desks, and then in turn we have our contract with Systemhouse. We are dealing with them on the supplying of the hardware, so that the overall essence of our responsibility in Government Services is to ensure that the Desktop Management initiative takes place and it takes place on schedule and it does everything it is supposed to do for the corporate structure within government.
Mr. Maloway: Well, the minister will know that back in I believe it was January his department had just paid for the first 500 units, I believe--was in the process of paying for the 500 units. Can he tell me where the money came from, the path of the money, I guess, to pay for those first 500 units?
Mr. Pitura: Well, those dollars flow out of this corporation, GISMO, which is the corporation that was put in place by the Department of Finance for the purposes of funding the Desktop Management program and, I guess, the other three initiatives as well.
Mr. Maloway: The minister has had plenty of time to discover information that has been asked many times now, and that is who the lowest price bidder was for the actual hardware provided. Would he answer that question now? Just minutes ago in Question Period he said that he wanted to answer it in the Estimates. He has all the high-priced help here right now to provide him with the actual answers. We know what the answer is. I just want him to put it on the record, and, as the minister responsible for this department, I want him to put it on the record as to who the lowest price bidder was.
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Mr. Pitura: Well, I think I will respond to the member this way because he indicates that he has the answer to the question he is asking. To me, that is in itself, I do not know, questionable antics, I guess. I give him an example of this, that if we were going into the leasing of building space and we wanted 10,000 square feet of building space and our lowest price bidder came in and gave us the lowest price and said we have 9,000 square feet, so we go to the bidder that gives us 10,000 square feet but it is at a higher price. So of what worth is it then to know that that was the lowest price bidder because you were not getting the full amount of the specs within your request from that low-price bidder?
So I have to turn around and ask the honourable member: what is the value of knowing who the low-cost bidder is? Besides, he says he knows already. So if the rest of the RFP proposal was such that the bidder came in short on the rest of the requirements and, as a result, did not get the bid.
Mr. Maloway: Well, the suspicion--and well founded, I might add--is that the entire process was rigged to favour high-price providers, that the lower price local providers were cut out of the system. I guess the minister could solve the problem by simply revealing the point system, the definition of terms that made up the point system, and the order of ranking. I think that would solve the problem, because I can tell you that a number of the bidders are prepared to accept that they lost the contract fair and square. It is just they do not believe that it was fair and square, and I think I know enough of them to know that they are realistic. They are business people; they have a long experience in the business. They know when they are being had, and they know when they lose contracts that it is just part of a day's work, these things happen; but, when the original specifications were drawn up in such a way that one could see the writing was on the wall from day one, then clearly there is a suspicion there that it was not handled properly. I want the minister to come clean with us and tell this committee and give us all the facts so that we can let these unsuccessful bidders know that they, in fact, lost fair and square.
Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairman, I think, again, I have to remind the honourable member that the Department of Government Services has a lot of contracts, a lot of consulting contracts, a lot of contracts awarded for building construction, building renovations, cleaning contracts, amongst other things. I would just like to share with the honourable member that very often the companies who do not win the contracts often are upset because they do not win the contracts, and so what they will do is tend to say, well, you know the contract bidding process was not done right because, if it had been done right, I would have won. Well, I am sorry but that is not the way it always works.
I know, and the member knows, that when you go out seeking employment in the world, in the job market that, when you go for an interview, there is going to be one successful person for that interview and the rest of them are going to be unsuccessful. I have been in that position where I have been unsuccessful, and when I found out who got the position, I said, well, I am just as good as that person is, if not better. Why did I not get the job? But that is what happens. One is selected and the rest are not.
I would also like to remind the member that with regard to the contract that Systemhouse let for the procurement of computer hardware, each and every individual who bid had the opportunity and was invited to come and have a discussion with Systemhouse as to why they did not get the contract. As far as that is concerned, that is a very open system. They all had that ability to have that discussion, and Systemhouse would have met with them and had that discussion.
Mr. Maloway: Well, that is not in fact what happened. In fact the definitions of such things as vendor stability and presence were not provided. So the people were not apprised of how many points would make up these particular classifications, categories.
I would like to ask the minister again: would he give me a definition of vendor presence? I would like to hear that one again. That was a good one. I would like to hear that one a second time.
Mr. Pitura: In response to the honourable member's question, probably one part of the process that he may not be aware of is that when the RFP, the request for proposal, is put together, when there are, as in this particular case, 11 companies that--or actually there were 39, I guess, that originally requested the papers, the RFP to quote on--each and every one of them are invited to a bidders conference. So the very question that the member is asking about vendor presence is a question that the potential bidder could ask of the potential contractor, which was Systemhouse, who, at that time, with all the bidders in the presence of them, would be able to explain what the definition was and what they were looking for within the RFP with regard to vendor presence.
I am sure that within the RFP proposal itself that the criteria, and I am not familiar with the criteria of vendor presence, that those kinds of criteria would be spelled out in the RFP proposal so that the potential respondent to the RFP would have a knowledge and have the same knowledge as any other company bidding with regard to what it meant.
Mr. Maloway: Well, they did not have a definition of what it meant and you do not have a definition of what it meant. I would like you to put it on the record. Give me a copy of this definition of vendor presence. What does it mean?
Mr. Pitura: I have with me a section in the request for proposal that was put out by Systemhouse. It states here that an important aspect of product selection is choosing manufacturers that are stable, with continued good prospects in the industry to protect technology investments. As product features leapfrog each other, it is important to focus on long-term prospects of the manufacturer and their products. Please provide the manufacturer financial information and corporate profile information related to market trends and applicable product acceptance. Independent references would be an asset.
So I do not know if that gives the member the proper definition or not. I would point out again that within the general qualifications area, vendor presence is just one small part of that, that the other areas such as research and development are important. The level of technological investment is important. The delivery capabilities and commitments and performance bonding all make up that. So if you are taking the general qualifications at 25 percent, you are looking at about 4 percent of the overall qualifications attributed to vendor presence. So it is not a huge factor in the weighting average.
Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, I think the minister should just come out and admit that vendor presence, which is blue sky, was just another way for IBM to rack up some points against some of its competitors.
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I would like to ask the minister then, regarding Fleet Vehicles, in the bidding for the cars, what sort of criteria are used there? Is vendor presence a consideration?
Mr. Pitura: I am advised that with respect to the question of fleet vehicles, there is a different process in place with respect to the purchase of fleet vehicles. I will try to explain it, and I may have to ask my deputy minister to help me out as we go along.
When the exact specifications of a product are known, i.e., the colour, length, horsepower, all those technical specs are known. Then it could be put out in what is called a tender process. The tender process asks for a response back to the tender for those specs. Then price becomes the bottom line of choice.
Now, when you get into an area where the actual technical specifications are not known, then you go into an area of a request for a proposal document which then the different areas of the document have to be assessed. So you get into not so much the technical aspects of the document as much as the areas that we are talking about with regard to the evaluation criteria of product quality, general qualifications, technical specs and cost.
Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, will the minister tell us then why the specifications were not known when it comes to this computer contract? And if they are not known, why were they not known to each of the people who were bidding?
Mr. Pitura: Well, in answer to that, the reason that technical specs were not put into the RFP and then converted to a tender is a fact that as the desktop rollout is taking place--and do not forget that this rollout is taking place from October or November 1997 to March 31, 1999--that indeed over that period of time--and I think the honourable member, if I can quote him correctly, said that the maximum time for inventory on a shelf was something like 18 days, if I am not mistaken.
An Honourable Member: Eleven.
Mr. Pitura: Eleven days. So that in terms of the product specs having an ability to change rapidly over that period of time allows for that change to take place. So we knew that when we started off the process--if you were getting Pentiums, just as an example, and then by the time the process was done you are into Pentium II, that change was allowed to take place. Whereas in a tendered document, that would not take place. The total delivery would take place at that time.
Mr. Maloway: I cannot really believe that the minister is saying this. It was a complaint from the unsuccessful bidders as well that there was a lack of technical specifications. I fail to understand how it could be any different from quoting for the automobiles. It is very easy. We do this every day. We write down a list of specifications we want for a computer, we send it out to two or three companies and ask for quotes. What is so difficult about that? That is technical specification; that is the same. All you did was you required those technical specs to be quoted on for the first 1,000 computers of the 7,000 in total. So what do you mean you did not use any technical specs?
Mr. Pitura: Just to clarify for the honourable member that there was a minimum hardware configuration within the RFP, but then it was open for the responses to come back with whatever they saw fit to be in excess of that. There was a minimum configuration that was required; beyond that, the door was wide open.
Mr. Maloway: So, Mr. Chairman, were there extra points given if they provided better hardware and better specifications?
Mr. Pitura: From that point of the evaluation, that was part of the ongoing requirements with regard to the cost. It was placed in that area in terms of evaluation.
Mr. Maloway: I still do not understand why with a contract this big that you could not provide for technical specifications? Why would you not do something like that? I heard that mentioned to me that the definitions were not there for market presence and vendor stability and these other kind of nebulous terms that they were using. I understood those were not there, and I just did not believe. I thought it must have been a mistake when I was told that there were no specifications, or the specifications were not properly laid out. I just thought that was probably not really believable, but now the minister is confirming it that there were no specifications. So how the heck did these people know what they were actually quoting on in the first place?
Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairman, here are the minimum hardware configurations--
Mr. Maloway: On a point of order. Does the minister have another copy of that so we can sort of go through it as he reads through?
Mr. Chairperson: The honourable member for Elmwood does not have a point of order.
Mr. Chairperson: The honourable minister, to continue with your response.
Mr. Pitura: I will just share some of the specs with the honourable member, because it is quite lengthy. For example, the processor has to be base configuration of 166 megahertz Pentium with MMX technology; power configuration, Pentium 233 megahertz with MMX technology.
If you take a look at the diskette drive, it is a 3.5 and a 1.44 megabyte. The video on board, one megabyte RAM, PCI 64-bit 1024 x 768, which would be the--whatever it is called--pixels. [interjection] Everybody got a copy of this. This is the RFP, request for proposal, by Systemhouse that everybody got. So that minimum configuration was there.
Mr. Chairperson: Order, please. If the minister is going to read the whole document then, I would ask that he table it for the committee's benefit, unless you are going to conclude your response at this point.
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Mr. Pitura: It is concluded.
Mr. Chairperson: Okay, thank you.
Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, so if that is the case then, I fail to see why it is any different than his assertion that the car companies ask for quotes based on the year, model, colour, different features in the car, and that they all compete against one another. The key is then price. Now what is the difference? When the member for Transcona (Mr. Reid) and myself send out requests for bids to Dell and Gateway, and other people for Powerland, Mind, for quotes on computers, we do exactly what he just read. We specify what it is we want. Sometimes we specify brand names of hard drives and so on. We ask for quotes, and price becomes paramount. Price is the only thing that really matters in that case. What is the difference?
Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairman, I think the honourable member and I can probably enter into this debate for a long period of time. The honourable member is saying that, when he orders computers, he specifies what he wants exactly and that cost is the only factor that is involved in the purchasing of that computer. But I would like to ask the member, I guess, if you get a computer that has an enhanced capability over the quote, the technical specs that you are asking for, and there is a slight incremental cost, whether at that point cost is that factor, as opposed to also whether you are purchasing a computer as an ongoing--do not forget, when you are purchasing that computer, in the case of the provincial government, we are purchasing on the basis of a 66-month ongoing contract with this particular company. Their responsibility to us is to ensure that we have a system that will be in place, that will transfer data, that will give us the ability to do one-stop shopping for customers and the taxpayers of the province of Manitoba, and it is important for those computers to be operative.
They have made the choice that to deal with who they thought would be able to give them that assurance that they would be able to have a product that would perform that job. When we are buying an automobile, we are not entering into a 66-month contract with the automobile manufacturer. We may be entering into that type of a contract with the financing arm of the company, but we are not obligated to enter into that kind of a long-term contract with the automobile manufacturer.
But in the particular case of the provincial government--and I reiterate--our contract is with Systemhouse. Systemhouse has the contract to deliver a certain product to the provincial government. If they do not, there are penalties to be paid, and the ultimate penalty is that they do not have the contract anymore. So their job is to ensure that they have a product that will be reliable, and it is their choice in the end as to how they procure that product.
I would also remind the honourable member that, if you are looking at the terms of the Manitoba contractors, the suppliers, there are approximately 16 computer firms in the province of Manitoba that are now in the process of having subcontracts with Systemhouse to help in the Desktop Management initiative. These computer companies are spread out throughout the province. There is one in Dauphin, Swan River, Thompson, The Pas, some in Winnipeg, Swan River, Russell. So they are spread out all over the province in terms of the subcontract supplies to Systemhouse for desktop initiative.
Mr. Maloway: How long a warranty did each of the computers come with or provided with from IBM?
Mr. Pitura: Mr. Chairman, the computers have a four-year warranty.
Mr. Maloway: I still fail to see a lot of difference here between the procurement of cars from General Motors or the procurement of computers from IBM. I do not really see a lot of difference. I think it is very easy to specify exactly what it is you want in the tender, the specifications that you want in the tender, whether it is cars, whether is computers, no matter what it is. Then, it really does come down to a question of price. That is, price is the one common denominator that all of the bidders can understand.
When you start giving 25 percent of the points to nebulous concerns, such as vendor presence, stability and so on, then you lose any kind of semblance of fairness in the process. I mean, if it were equal equipment, all provided, you know, 166 megahertz, and all the specifications were equal, then the bidders would quote their prices. Then it would be easy to make a decision as to which one was the best.
But that was not done here, and that was not done here because IBM has never been known as the lowest-price provider of equipment. I mean, I know why it was provided, why it was set up the way it was set up. I mean, just on a price point, IBM would never win. I can pretty well guarantee that. They are not known as the low-price producer.
So you worked up a system that would give IBM the edge here by coming up with nebulous definitions of vendor stability and vendor presence, and there is a whole host of other ones that you have here. Certainly that is not fostering a positive view of how this government operates within the industry. The minister alludes to keeping the losing companies happy by giving them contracts. That is exactly what I said yesterday; that is exactly what you have done. When the losers, the nonsuccessful bidders complained, what you did was you gave them, in one case, the right to install computers in another corporation for IBM. You gave another one something else. You have just simply put some grease in the squeaky wheels to keep them off your case. So I know what you have done; you cannot tell me any different there.
I would like to get back to the whole question here about the Fleet Vehicles and ask a single question on that, and that is: do you still involve yourself in the practice whereby the manufacturer provides, I believe it is, $240 free monetary reward or inducement to each of the dealers, sort of to keep them happy and give them the right to put their nameplates on the backs of the cars?
Now I recall back to one other previous, glorious minister, here, of Government Services, one of this minister's predecessors, when we discussed this whole matter. One of the companies did not provide this incentive but certainly the other two did. I am not sure which one did not, but one of them provided, I think, $240. Another one provided $120. So what you had here was a spectacle of the car companies basically, gratis, giving the car dealer, in that case, $240 a car, for having done nothing, perhaps not even seeing the car, plus they put the name of the dealership on the car.
Then we got into the whole question about where the warranty work was being done and--[interjection] No, no, the warranty work was being done at different dealerships. At that time there was one dealer in particular who had very close connections to the Conservative Party who was doing the lion's share of the work. I do say that after those questions were raised two or three years ago now, the very next year the work sort of evened out a lot more, and that one particular dealer's share dropped substantially and others began to share in it.
If the minister could update us on what is happening with that incentive.
Mr. Pitura: As I recall, I think we had this conversation last year as well, in terms of monetary credits. At that time, I am not sure, I think maybe one of the automobile manufacturers was involved with the credit system to their dealers. According to our information here, out of the big three, GM, Chrysler and Ford, Ford is the only one that awards a monetary credit, and that is a hundred dollars to their dealer as a credit for the sale to put their logo on the back of the car.
Mr. Maloway: I still have great difficulty understanding why this is done. Now let us get this straight. The Ford Motor Company of Canada pays the local dealer a hundred dollars for the right to put the dealer's name on the car. Let us get this straight. Ford has already got its name on the car, okay. So Ford is paying, you know, Bob Kozminski Ford or Cam Clark Ford or Midway Ford, they are paying each one of these guys a hundred dollars to put Bob Kozminski's name on the car. I would think it should be the other way around. It should be Midway Ford pays Ford a hundred dollars to put their name on the car. I think this is a pretty crazy incentive program myself.
Mr. Pitura: I guess I have to say I probably agree with the member on this one, that it is really something that is difficult to understand. However, that is the agreement that the automobile manufacturer makes with that dealer. I would suggest that, if he wants to pursue it any further, he might want to contact Ford Canada as to what their rationale is.
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Mr. Maloway: Mr. Chairman, this minister is a little more sensible than the previous one that was here. I would ask him to contact Ford Canada and ask them if they might consider reducing the price of the vehicles to the government by $100 and forget giving the incentive to the dealership. I cannot see where this would make the Chrysler dealers and the GM dealers all that happy once they know that Ford dealers are getting this $100 freebie per car. So I would think it should be the minister taking the initiative here and saying: Listen, Ford, if you can provide $100 to the dealer to put their name on these cars, maybe you could just reduce the price of the quote by $100 and let the taxpayers benefit. Good idea?
Mr. Pitura: Yes, it is probably a good idea if that were in fact the case. I would say to the honourable member that it is probably a good idea that we do contact Ford to find out why they put the $100 credit on. I guess the only qualification I would give to that would be that, indeed, Ford Motor Company of Canada might do this with all fleet sales across the country. It may be a standard policy of Ford Motor Company with respect to not only Manitoba but all the rest of the provinces. So from that standpoint, if that is the answer, I would get back. I would have to be satisfied with that as an internal policy with the Ford Motor Company, and there is not very much one can do about it to get them to change.
Mr. Maloway: I appreciate that. I wonder if the minister would endeavour to write the letter to Ford, and then let us know what the response is.
Mr. Pitura: I will endeavour to do that.
Mr. Maloway: Before we move on to line by line and enter Finance Estimates, I would like to ask the minister whether he has had the time to contemplate the questions about the Internet policy that he does not have currently in the department, whether or not he has been able to discover some policy here or formulate and promulgate some sort of policy in the last 24 hours, 48 hours.
Mr. Pitura: I guess, again, I have to go back to the honourable member and indicate to him that the chief information officer is ultimately the person who is responsible for a policy with regard to the Internet use and any kind of security policies with respect to the Internet. The Desktop Management Unit, we are simply the providers of the hardware and the enabling for this hardware to be hooked up to the Internet. So that is part of our responsibility with the Department of Government Services. The overall policy with regard to use of the Internet, the security issues associated with the Internet, is to be dealt with and put into place by the chief information officer.
Mr. Maloway: I am not sure whether the minister answered the question. Does he have a policy or has he had a policy all these last several years as it relates to the 900 Internet sites? He has had a few days now to check for this policy that he claimed that he did not have and to find out if there is one or not. It is either just a yes or no, and then we can move onto line by line.
Mr. Pitura: The use of the 900 sites that are presently located throughout government within the various departments is a responsibility of each individual department with regard to the use of the Internet and the security issues related with the Internet by each department. Within the department of Government Services, our policy with regard to the Internet is that the time spent on a computer during the business hours of Government Services be used for business purposes only and not for personal use, and that has been our policy within Government Services. Other departments may, indeed, have different policies or may, in fact, have not had any policy at all. That I cannot comment on.
Mr. Maloway: Is this policy in writing, and can I have a copy of it right now?
Mr. Pitura: I am advised that the policy in Government Services is a broad policy for the provincial government; that is, the use of the Internet for personal use is not permitted on business hours.
Mr. Maloway: Well, I would like to see where it is in writing. Where is it written down here that this is the case? Or is the minister just making this up as we go along?
Mr. Pitura: I am advised that it is not a written policy.
Mr. Maloway: I think that pretty much ends my questions on the DMU and Government Services for this year. We may be back at it in concurrence in a couple of weeks, so if the minister would like to make a note of that, that we could maybe get everybody prepared for another visit here and get all that information that we were asking for.
With that, I would like to thank the minister and the staff for their efforts and their time, and maybe we could move on to the line-by-line now, and then on to Finance.
Mr. Chairperson: Line 8.1. Administration (b) Executive Support (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $389,600--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $69,200--pass.
Item 8.1.(c) Finance (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $634,000--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $212,600--pass.
Item 8.1.(d) Human Resource Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $438,500--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $157,300--pass.
Item 8.1.(e) Information Technology Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $370,200--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $211,100--pass.
Item 8.1.(f) Lieutenant Governor's Office (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $101,500--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $62,500--pass.
Item 8.1.(g) Land Value Appraisal Commission $27,400--pass.
Item 8.2. Property Management (a) Executive Administration (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $163,600--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $30,800--pass.
Item 8.2.(b) Physical Plant (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $14,333,600--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $28,523,300.
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Mr. Maloway: We have a final couple of questions here on the disposition of the old equipment, because, admittedly, a lot of the old equipment is probably next to worthless, and it is quite old. On the other hand, some of it would be very recent and I note that as late as, what, last November, just when the contract was being let for the new equipment, there was new equipment being delivered. I do not know whether it was being delivered as late as November, but, certainly, I think the minister will bear me out in this that there were deliveries in August of last year, probably in September. I think it kind of phased itself out by November, December, when the new equipment started, so that would be--you know, that is only six-month-old equipment and even though it is not sort of high-tech stuff, I guess, it is still pretty good equipment.
So I am wondering just what the policy is for the disposition. Is it in writing and could the minister provide us with a copy of that?
Mr. Pitura: I am advised that there is a policy being put into place at the present time. It will be announced shortly, but I would share with the member that I think some of the discussion is around some departments of government that are out of scope at the present time and may be given priority for some of the equipment, but there is also the use of the equipment, for example, in schools that identified a major need for computers.
So those kinds of things are being developed within a policy format and will be announced shortly, I am told.
Mr. Maloway: Who will decide which schools get the new equipment, for example, versus which schools will get the old equipment?
Mr. Pitura: I think that in the past any time there has been surplus computers, they have gone through I think this organization called Computers for Schools and Libraries group, which sort of takes the school-by-school basis and allocates the computers. I would not be too terribly surprised if this was not the group that was used to distribute. I believe it is a nonprofit volunteer education group whose responsibility is in that area.
Mr. Maloway: Presumably the minister's announcement will be made public at the time as to how the disposition of the old equipment will take place. I mean, if it is just going to be an edict by the minister, I would like to have a copy of it when it is made public.
Mr. Pitura: I am sure when the policy is put into place, the announcement will be made at the appropriate time, because one of the important things is if there are groups out there that do have a requirement, they should be knowledgeable about that, so information will be out then. We will allow them to do that.
Mr. Chairperson: Item 8.2.(b)(2) Other Expenditures $28,523,300--pass; (3) Preventative Maintenance $161,000--pass; (4) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($27,000)--pass.
8.2.(c) Leased Properties (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $51,500--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $17,776,800--pass.
8.2.(d) Property Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $349,800--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $289,900--pass; (3) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($220,000)--pass.
8.2.(e) Security and Parking (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $2,831,100--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $624,000--pass; (3) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($1,633,000)--pass.
8.2.(f) Accommodation Cost Recovery ($40,799,000)--pass.
Resolution 8.2: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $22,456,400 for Government Services, Property Management, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.
Item 8.3. Supply and Services (a) Executive Administration (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $176,600--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $24,100--pass.
8.3.(b) Government Air Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $4,209,800--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $5,608,800--pass; (3) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($9,818,600)--pass.
8.3.(c) Desktop Management Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $676,000--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $4,968,900--pass; (3) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($25,000)---pass.
8.3.(d) Purchasing (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,097,300--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $434,200--pass.
8.3.(e) Telecommunications (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $1,047,700--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $5,231,800--pass; (3) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($5,447,100)--pass.
8.3.(f) Office Equipment Services (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits; (2) Other Expenditures (3) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations--no amounts.
8.3.(g) Mail Management Agency--no amount.
8.3.(h) Materials Distribution Agency--no amount.
8.3.(j) Land Management Services--no amount.
8.3.(k) Fleet Vehicles Agency--no amount.
Resolution 8.3: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $8,184,500 for Government Services, Supply and Services, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.
Item 8.4. Accommodation Development (a) Accommodation Development (1) Salaries and Employee Benefits $2,022,400--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $817,900--pass; (3) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($495,000)--pass.
8.4.(b) Workshop/Renovations (1) Salaries, Wages and Employee Benefits $2,007,500--pass; (2) Other Expenditures $276,500--pass; (3) Workshop Projects $3,075,000--pass; (4) Less: Recoverable from other appropriations ($5,359,000)--pass.
Resolution 8.4: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $2,345,300 for Government Services, Accommodation Development, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.
Item 8.5. Emergency Management Organization (a) Salaries and Employee Benefits $668,900--pass; (b) Other Expenditures $407,400--pass.
Resolution 8.5: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $1,076,300 for Government Services, Emergency Management Organization, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.
8.6. Expenditures Related to Capital (a) Capital Projects $18,275,100--pass; (b) Less: Recoverable from Capital Initiatives ($2,100,000)--pass.
Resolution 8.6: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $16,175,100 for Government Services, Expenditures Related to Capital, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.
The next item to be considered for the Estimates of the Department of Government Services is item 8.1.(a) Minister's Salary. At this time we would request that the minister's staff leave the table for the consideration of this item.
Item 8.1.(a) Minister's Salary $26,300--pass.
* (1540)
Resolution 8.1: RESOLVED that there be granted to Her Majesty a sum not exceeding $2,700,200 for the Government Services, Administration, for the fiscal year ending the 31st day of March, 1999.
This now completes the Estimates for the Department of Government Services.