Ontario Hansard - 03-November2005

LESLIE M. FROST CENTRE

Ms. Laurie Scott (Haliburton-Victoria-Brock): My question is to the Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal. On Monday of this week, October 31, you met with representatives of the Frost Centre working committee. In July of this year, they delivered a report to Minister Phillips and thanked him for his support of their work, and they wanted to meet with the new minister responsible to discuss the recommendations.
On July 13, 2004, your government closed the Frost Centre with no warning, no consultation, and it has sat vacant ever since. The Frost Centre was an Amethyst Award-winning environmental education centre, and the closure of the centre shocked people not just in the community but across the province.
In response to the huge outcry at the closure of the Frost, your government established the Frost working committee. Minister, they need you to do your job. They have done a tremendous job, and they need to know from you: When are you going to produce the guidelines for the request for proposal for the future of the Frost Centre?

Hon. David Caplan (Minister of Public Infrastructure Renewal, Deputy Government House Leader): I want to thank the member for the question. Of course, I want to recognize the very fine work that was done by the Frost Centre working committee. It truly was a community effort, a group of people who came together. I know that my colleague from Peterborough, Jeff Leal, and my colleague from Parry Sound-Muskoka also worked to participate to make sure that was very successful.
On July 15, my colleague the Minister of Government Services received the recommendations. We've already accepted and in fact executed one of the recommendations, which was to allow and to enter into a contract with Algonquin Highlands for access to the boat launch facility. If that has not been signed, that will be signed within days, an agreement to allow that kind of access.
We are continuing to work, and in my meeting I did follow up with the two members from the Frost Centre working committee on putting together the request for proposal to go out, as recommended in their report, as soon as possible.

Ms. Scott: I do appreciate the support from all sides of the Legislature on the development of the future of the Frost Centre.
The minister still has not answered the question. The buildings are sitting vacant, and the longer they sit, they more they deteriorate. The committee wants to stay involved and has offered their assistance, and there is a lot of assistance within the community and the province for this, but the people who want to make the request for proposals want to act soon. They're wasting time and money. They're anxious for the guidelines to be produced. I would ask again if we could get some type of close time frame within this year for the request for proposals to go out, and then a timeline that might be involved for when the acceptance would be notified. As I said, we don't want to get into two years of vacant buildings at the Frost Centre.

Hon. Mr. Caplan: The committee worked very diligently and in fact gave their report. Within days of receiving the report, we began to act upon the recommendations. I don't think we could move faster than we did. I can tell you that the members of the committee who did meet with me on Monday were incredibly pleased that we are proceeding with the request for proposal. We will be taking on the technical specifications as outlined by the committee members, putting that in and making sure that we have a fair opportunity, as laid out by the Frost Centre working committee: the kinds of terms and conditions around ownership, around usage, around all of those terms and conditions, as well as the need to bring the systems and the buildings into a state of repair.
We have not put a specific date around that, although I have committed to make absolute best efforts to make that as short as possible so that we could turn around and, if there is the interest with another partner out in the community --

The Speaker: Thank you. New question.