Mr. Arngna'naaq.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I didn't get the full gist of the question. The objectives listed in the main estimates are what the department feels they are able to undertake for the year, or at least start. The only page the Member has in front of him are the two new initiatives the department plans to undertake. Maybe I could get a clarification on his question.

Please clarify your question.

Then I will get a clarification of the answer. The question I thought was quite clear. The department has put forward 27 definitive objectives for the year. The Standing Committee on Finance thought that this department, along with all of the other departments, are putting forward a number of areas they wanted major work done on during the year and we wanted to get an idea on how they intended to do that. The reason we had asked for something more detailed was to go through your major objectives with resources that will be necessary to complete them, the time frames and some basic ideas of how you intend to complete

them. Under municipal operations and assessment it says, "To develop incentives that will support municipal governments' efforts to hire staff with appropriate qualifications." I have no idea what that means. We had hoped that we would get more detailed clarification of each one of these objectives. Even in the two we have, there isn't much detail. So we are not further ahead in getting a better idea of what you want to achieve.

There are two ways to do it. We could go through each one in detail and have you respond. But we thought it would save us all time and effort just to have it written down so we could ask questions about the ones that weren't clear. That was what I was asking. Your answer confuses me a bit more. Are these two initiatives new since you were before the Standing Committee on Finance? Have you added two new initiatives to this list?

Mr. Arngna'naaq.

Okay. I misunderstood the question. I think for a detailed response to the question on definitive objectives, I will ask the deputy minister to answer.

Mr. Menard, please tell us a bit more about what is not on the paper.

Mr. Chairman, I think we were advised by the Minister of Finance to prepare a list of what some of the major objectives were in our department and respond to those. On the list for our department, we noticed there was only two and those are the two that are in front of the Member now. They were considered new objectives, I guess. All of the rest of the objectives we have undertaken according to our normal work plans during the year and wherever they are found is where we get the money to do it. It is a normal function of the department to do those types of things and we assign the work by priority. It is nothing new.

The two that were identified as new ones, which they aren't, are still done under our work plan. That was to implement and evaluate the first year delivery of programs under the municipal capital assistance policy. We do that anyway because we review it every year. We have new policies in place and we will review that with our existing staff in community works and capital planning.

The development of a financial assistance policy of hamlet and charter communities taxation authority we are doing as well through our normal work plan through municipal operations and assessment. So we weren't aware that we had to explain each departmental objective in this exercise.

I would like to remind witnesses and Members to talk at a speed our interpreters can handle. Mr. Patterson.

Point Of Order

Is it not customary to have the Minister's opening remarks circulated to the committee? If so, could I ask the chair's encouragement of that practice with this Minister? Thank you.

I don't believe it is automatic, but by request I think Ministers have always made them available. Mr. Arngna'naaq, do you have copies of your opening remarks available so Members could have it?

I don't know where there are copies, if there are any, but certainly the comments are available for Members.

So we can make arrangements to have copies available for Members?

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Pollard.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in the Standing Committee on Finance document, page 22 through 29, there were departments inside the department titles that were new initiatives and initiatives currently under way. Departments priorized the new initiatives and were asked to respond on whether they were included in their present targets they were asking for or if they would be required to ask for additional funds to complete the initiative. That is the document Members will receive tomorrow morning, compiling all departments, and will contain that information. If you go back to recommendation 2, it talks about a priorized list of planned initiatives. So we were working on the new initiatives for each department for this fiscal year. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pollard. That is useful. We are still on general comments. Do you want to carry on, Mr. Ballantyne?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The explanation given by the Minister of Finance becomes one of a certain amount of subjectivity. Some of these objectives I thought were somewhat complex and may cause some difficulty for the department. If what the Minister of Finance and MACA are saying is that none of these objectives should cause you any problems, then I will be satisfied with that. I will expect to see a successful resolution of all of these issues by the end of the year.

But, one that I will ask, if I could, Mr. Chairman, specifically, one that is -- as the deputy minister knows and as the Minister is probably becoming aware -- quite complex, is the management strategy for the Ingraham Trail area. There are a lot of conflicting uses on the Ingraham Trail. There is mining. There are the objectives of the Yellowknife Dene Band. They are talking about increasing the size of their area and they will be involved in treaty discussions and negotiations over the next few years. There is the desire of many of the cottage owners to own their own cottages. There has been a long-standing objective of the department to come up with some kind of a management plan of the area, because, from time to time, as the deputy minister remembers, these conflicting uses give us a lot of problems. So, this is quite definitive here as your objective is to implement the management strategy. I would be very supportive of you doing that, but I just wonder, though, how the Minister intends to proceed, then, in implementing this management strategy for the Ingraham Trail area.

Mr. Arngna'naaq.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to ask Mr. Menard to respond to that.

Mr. Menard.

Through the process of developing this plan, which was very difficult as all the client groups were included in developing the plan, we ran into some difficulties somewhere along the line. Because it is not all Commissioner's land and there is a lot of federal land, we lost support for completing the plan. So, since the book has been printed, the plan has since been put on hold. We are going to use the information we have as a guideline in the interim until after land selection. We were requested by the federal government to stop the plan in order to support the land selection process and to put things on hold, which will probably resume once land selection has been finalized. In the meantime, we will be using the plan as a guideline and we think we can fulfil our commitments that were made to some of the people on the Ingraham Trail, especially in the area where there is Commissioner's land. So that is what we are doing with it.

Does that answer your question, Mr. Ballantyne? Mr. Ballantyne.

Yes, that answers part of the question, and I am aware of the difficulty. I just have a comment that on the Ingraham Trail, even though there are a lot of different users and there is a lot of different potential for that land, I think there is some possibility right now, if the department tried to bring everyone together again, for some trade-offs there. I know the Yellowknives Dene Band have some aspirations and I think some of those aspirations could be met without a tremendous amount of difficulty. I think that it is a matter that the city also has some longer term plans, the cottage owners want to get ownership, and in just talking to different parties, I get a sense that if somebody was willing to get in there and broach some arrangements, I think there is some possibility there. What I have heard from each individual group is a certain willingness to sit down and see if they can sort out some compromises on the trail. So, I wonder if I could ask the Minister if he and the department are prepared to continue to try to facilitate some compromise solutions as to the management of the Ingraham Trail?