Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to ask the Minister, is it the intent of the government after these revisions have taken place, if they're approved by Cabinet, to have them in place for the new fiscal year for tendering.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I wasn't paying full attention to the Member when he was speaking, so if he can repeat the question a little louder then I'll hear it. Thank you.

Maybe the Minister should use his ear phone. His attention span might be a bit longer.

My question to the Minister was, is it the intention of his department, after Cabinet approves the revisions to the business incentive policy, to have it in place for the next tendering year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My attention span does quite well, thank you, Mr. Ng. We will be able to amend tenders, as well as we have, through the senior management committee, which he's made amendments to our tenders already. Hopefully, that will close some of the loopholes. But it's going to take some time and the whole new direction probably won't be cleared up until the following tender year.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Coral Harbour community has objected numerous times, after a bad experience with the Foxe Basin contracting company. When the Foxe Basin contracts were awarded again this year for next spring, Coral Harbour really objected to it. But the Minister said, after the awarding, that there's nothing they really can do because Foxe Basin has rectified their defaults, or corrected the mistake they made with respect to the contract work they did in Coral Harbour. Now we heard about one month ago that the Foxe Basin contract in Iqaluit has been terminated. It's the same contractor. I guess my question is, is the Minister still planning to honour that contract they have already awarded for Coral Harbour after they have defaulted that contract work in Iqaluit.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If the Member could be more specific then I might have an idea of what he's talking about. He's saying contracts in Coral Harbour and Iqaluit; are they with the Department of Public Works or with the Housing Corporation? What contracts is he speaking about? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It's not within my knowledge or my deputy minister's knowledge that Foxe Basin has any contracts with DPW. If the Member could wait until the NWT Housing Corporation's budget comes up, maybe then I could respond because that's a different briefing book. Thanks.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. I have to commend the Department of Public Works and Services and the Minister on their building and learning strategy, which I think is a very good way to help the communities and develop the human resources in a community. That is in conjunction with the NWT Housing Corporation and the Department of Education, Culture and Employment; they are due some credit as well. I think it was a joint venture between these departments to help the communities build their infrastructure as well as train the people there. It's a very good way to do it and I would like to encourage them to continue in that way. We've done that in some of the communities I represent.

It went very well last year in Trout Lake and was successful this year. We're doing a project similar to that in Nahanni Butte as well. As far as I'm aware, they're building a community centre there with an outside contractor hiring local people and training them. When I was there this summer when they started the construction a lot of local people were employed and had been trained on the job. It was a very good project. I would like to commend the department again on it.

There again, we don't have telephones available in those communities but in case they have telephones in the future, that should be looked at as well to have that in the building while they're constructing it. Perhaps if the Minister could check it out and see if that's possible.

In my constituency there are a lot of trees; and the communities are beginning to, through their resource management committees, identify the forest as their very sustainable economy for the future, if it's developed right, if it's logged right, if it's not clear cut and selective logging is used. That is the direction that some of the communities want to go now. With the trees, if we're able to get some sawmills into our area then we could make the boards and with the boards we will be able to build furniture, doors, windows, maybe roof trusses and so forth. That is the direction that a lot of people in my area are going. It's good that this government is buying manufactured goods from the north.

I know that the group in Fort Simpson have approached the department here to see if they could start a roof truss manufacturing centre in Simpson. To date, nothing has happened with it. I would like to ask the Minister if the Fort Simpson band company, the Liidti Koe Construction and Nikukoe Construction Group have approached this department with regard to manufacturing roof trusses for the government. Have they approached the government on this matter? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. About a little over a year ago now, I guess it was, we had tendered in the newspapers for proposal calls, expression of interest, for northern manufactured products. We got a lot of those expressions of interest. In some cases there was a great deal of expression of interest. An example would be these roof trusses. There were about seven or eight organizations or individuals that expressed interest in manufacturing roof trusses. That was for the Housing Corporation. We went to tender and the tender was won by a Yellowknife firm, Call 3000, or something. They had a one-year contract. We will be going to tender again because there's a great interest out there. The development corporation in Fort Simpson will have the opportunity to tender on those trusses.

According to the departmental overview of Public Works and Services, there are a number of items besides the roof trusses that are being manufactured and being purchased by the GNWT; products made in the north. Are any of these products manufactured in the north coming from the smaller communities like Fort Simpson, Fort Providence, Fort Liard, or any of these small communities? Are these manufactured goods all coming from the larger centres? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The windows come from Hay River; furniture from two places in Hay River; doors in Hay River; office furniture, Hay River; fuel tank stands, a small portion of them, Bearard Welding in Fort Resolution and the other portion has gone to Paul Brothers, I believe, or Back Bay Welding. Fuel tanks themselves, the small ones for houses, 200 and some gallons, is Back Bay again, I believe, or Paul Brothers, one of them, a Yellowknife firm. The big fuel tanks, five or six of them went into Hay River, Kingland. All fibreglass water tanks, sewer tanks, is Fibreglass North in Yellowknife. Fibreglass bathtubs and the tub-surrounds are the Fort Resolution Dene Band. That would be the only small place, Mr. Antoine.