Thank you. Madam Minister.

Mr. Chairman, we could provide the information on recoveries, if that is what the Member wants.

Thank you. Is that agreed?

Agreed.

---Agreed

General comments. Mr. Gargan.

I know you have some dollars to look at civil emergencies. With regard to the accident in the Soviet Union, I know the Canadian government is looking at trying to help clean up the spill there since, if it goes anywhere, it is going to go into the Canadian Arctic. Do we having anything with regard to the department addressing that, or is this the wrong department?

Thank you. Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will let the deputy minister respond to that.

Thank you. Deputy minister.

The department, through the emergency measures organization, would work to coordinate the response of the various agencies that would be involved in a response to a civil emergency. However, the department doesn't carry in its budget a contingency that would deal with a major response or a major clean-up. We fund our resources more for the typical types of emergency situations which are likely to repeat themselves over a number of years.

So, we are not carrying a financial contingency to look at a major response, but we are certainly resourced to carry out those functions for emergencies of a smaller scale.

Thank you. Mr. Gargan.

This would be more a search and rescue type of program?

Thank you. Madam Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Because of the harsh weather we live in, there are areas where they get high winds, and if the situation should get to a point where residents have to be evacuated to a bigger centre, which has happened in the past in my community of Pangnirtung, in the event that we have a power failure for an extended period of time or other circumstances we don't normally encounter every day. I think there was training provided in Iqaluit last summer through this program on how to handle an air crash, if there should be one. Thank you.

Thank you. General comments. Are we ready for details? Mr. Gargan.

Mr. Chairman, in the definitive objectives, it says that you require a radio and paging system for the newly constructed emergency operation centre in Fort Simpson. Since when has your department started dealing with medical issues in your capital budget? If you don't have the money to meet the demands, how can you be giving other dollars from your department to another department?

Madam Minister. Do you want to continue, Mr. Gargan?

I was just going to ask if this was going to be the trend that we see now. If a different department requires extra money for things, will they look at whether they can identify money from another department? I thought you couldn't do that without reflecting it in your budget.

Madam Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I will let the deputy minister respond to that.

Thank you. Mr. Ramsden.

Mr. Chairman, I think we are not quite so generous as what that might seem. The project that we are looking at is for communication equipment for the emergency response centre. It is certainly not related to health. It is a centre that our staff work from to coordinate an interagency response to civil emergencies. It is not related to health or to a medical emergency in any way, unless there was some linkage to an accident. This is a communications and coordination centre that has been set up in Fort Simpson.

Thank you. The honourable Member for Deh Cho.

Mr. Chairman, it is just says emergency operation centre. The only thing I can make reference to with regard to that, is a hospital. That is the only thing I could relate it to. That is why I asked the question that I did.

Most of the Members asked the department about things that they require in their communities. I also realize that we don't have the kind of money that is required. So you have to lead up to your requests and that is what I have been doing. The department has used up quite a bit of money during the last several years to provide vehicles for the community of Kakisa. I appreciate that. The community has also had their own money that they have used to buy their own vehicles also. You are now running into a situation in which a two-bay garage isn't enough to keep the equipment in storage. I just wanted to let you know that the community still requires that in order to save our equipment.

Also, there is a section in here with regard to access and repaving programs, but we don't have anything for the smaller communities. There is Fort Smith, Hay River and Fort Simpson. Those are the key communities that are identified to get a lot of sections upgraded and access roads. I would also like to say that I don't know where the Hay River Reserve falls under that category. As Mr. Ballantyne said, Ndilo is another area in which the community falls through the cracks or is in a grey area, so we don't really know who should be addressing their situation.

Because the reserve has its own boundaries, it probably uses the boundaries as municipal boundaries also. They require improvements to their access roads. Mr. Arngna'naaq and myself went to the reserve today and drove through the reserve, but the roads aren't wide enough. It is obvious that after a snowfall, there seems to be a lot of tracks leading into the ditches. You have a situation where, even though they do grade their roads, you don't know where the shoulders are. I can see where these people are going into the ditch because the roads aren't being taken care of.

With regard to gravel, the same situation applies. Did your department ever resolve that issue? I know we changed the municipal and hamlet acts, regarding gravel material. It was a legal issue. Did the department have to spend extra money in order to address that issue or did you just have to change the act itself?