I’d like to welcome the Nigerian delegation to Queen’s Park. They are a 50-member delegation. They are from all parts of Nigeria. The team ranks from mayor, commissioners, senior staff and CFOs. They are here today to observe our parliamentary session and to visit and tour the legislative facility. They will be having a gathering in room 247 from 11:45. All are welcome.

I’d also like to recognize the team that has put all the pieces together: Glenn De Baeremaeker, former deputy mayor; Jim Karygiannis; Mike Yorke; Tom Perdikis and Jeremy Beamer, along with my two staff, Ms. Novlette Mitchell and Cathy Quinton. Thank you.

That’s a great question, because I think one of the most important things is to not lose what is here, and one of the things we saw when we were on Parliament Hill was that every piece was actually numbered, brought somewhere and then stored somewhere so it could be put back when the time came. So, that’s all going to be part of the decanting, and that’s why it’s such a large project, because they do want to take it out, they number them and then they’ll put them back in place. So we can’t—you are right. For your granddaughter and everyone’s grandchildren, we can’t lose what we have. It has to be remembered and the engineers have a system in place to make sure that that does happen.

Well, as a staff member, you have a little bit more time on your hands, so you’re running around and seeing the stairwells. What changed is the roof; it’s changed, and I believe there was—this was red at one time, if I’m not mistaken. The carpet was red. So that changed, and some of the chairs are newer.

When it comes to the offices, I remember there were vaults in some of the offices in this place, which is pretty cool because we used to have a party in the vaults down the hallway there. There were actual vaults, and at one point I think that’s where the money was, although this place doesn’t have any money.

So, what has changed? Well, technology, of course, has changed. We were not allowed cellphones. No one could have a cellphone or a computer. As staff, my goodness, BlackBerrys didn’t even exist. I remember we had pagers, so they’d have to find us. If you wanted to reach your member, as staff you actually had to send notes in. You couldn’t text them automatically. Certainly technology has changed, and what’s allowed here as an MPP now versus then is twofold. That didn’t even exist at the time.

That’s just in a short period of time. Imagine what’s going to happen in 20 years. Technology’s going to change so much. We can’t answer all those questions because it’s yet to come. So we have to be prepared for the future.

Certainly we want to keep it within cost. We don’t want the cost to go skyrocketing, but there should never be a “let’s not look at something.” I think this is an opportunity to get it right. We’ll want to take our time and look at it, and we want advice from everybody. As we’ve said, it’s important to get it right because it’s not about us; it’s about the future. So let’s continue those conversations.