I understand the question and I can understand the concern, Mr. Chairman. As soon as we became aware that we were not going to be able to fund this from within, FMB was asked to take the appropriate action which was by then getting to be fairly urgent and we did it by way of special warrant. It might seem as if we might have bent the rules a little bit, but we believe we acted in good faith, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you. Am I to understand that on January 11, a decision was made to set up a task force of 2.5 PYs to implement the housing strategy? Is that when the decision was made?

Mr. Chairman, the staff were there already. It was just that on January 11, we recognized the 2.5 PYs, funded them $169,000 in salary and wages and $203,000 in O and M, for a total of $372,000 because the departments weren't able to handle it from within their appropriations. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

When was the special team set up to implement the strategy?

They were there most of the fiscal year. I think it was June that they started looking at the disposition of the houses, what it would take for appraisals, how many houses had to be looked at and what the process would have to be, Mr. Chairman. So they were there for the best part of the fiscal year.

It strikes me as odd that we set up a process or a strategy where we're supposed to save money and it's a case where it is costing us more money. I'm just wondering out loud how this has happened. The strategy has been around now for a couple of years, I believe, and it went to

implementation. It is only now, as Mr. Dent mentioned, that we are starting to recognize the actual costs. How much more is it going to cost us in the long run?

Mr. Chairman, this program will generate for us in excess of $14 million this year. We're hoping for $17.4 million in this fiscal year and another $9.45 million is 1994-95. That doesn't include the $1.5 million that we are going to save from DPW because we're no longer maintaining those units. I realize that $372,000 is a lot of money, but I think the return to us by disposing of assets, getting people into their own homes and getting us some cost-savings in other areas of the government is probably worth it, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

So most of the numbers that you mentioned are one-time savings from the sale of the units, or one-time revenue generating projects, which is again the sale of the units. That's where you get the hard cash. They are nice numbers, but the ongoing savings...I'm just wondering what the impact is. Again, we can come up with the numbers that you have and you stated, but there's another cost that doesn't seem to be taken into consideration. This is the cost on the staff, the morale, the mental costs. Some of the other costs that nobody has seemed to come up with yet is what's the impact on the staff in the communities? How many are going to be left after this whole strategy is in place? There are a lot of morale problems, a lot of unrest. In the communities where houses are going up for sale, a lot of staff don't know whether to buy or not because they don't know if they're going to have a job. This is causing a lot of concern. I'm just thinking out loud as to what the overall cost and impact is going to be on services to our residents.

Mr. Chairman, it's certainly not our intention to cause staff problems. They are a valuable resources of the Government of the Northwest Territories. I don't think we've said, in anything that I know about, that we are going to reduce the number of staff. We're certainly not trying to force people to buy these units. We are offering to those people who are interested in purchasing a unit, but we're certainly not forcing them. At least I'm not aware of any situation where we're making it stressful for them if they don't buy, or saying to them they'll lose their jobs or anything like that. If there is unrest about losing jobs and so on, I'd like to hear more about it because we certainly don't want to send that message to our employees. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Agreed.

---Agreed