Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in 1990, legal actions were filed in the Supreme Court against us and against the town of Norman Wells by a company called Wellex Limited and Kenaston Contractors Limited. They challenged our legal capacity and the town's legal capacity to levy fees and charges for operations and administration of the Norman Wells municipal quarries. Before this, the contractors had refused to pay the town's charges and thereby accumulated a large debt which the town subsequently attempted to recover through legal actions. When the town tried to get their money back through the courts, the contractors countersued the town and they included us in the suit. There was an examination of discovery, all parties had their lawyers there. After the examination of discovery, the Department of Justice for the Government of the Northwest Territories recommended that the matter be settled out of court. You may recall that we introduced new legislation to retroactively prevent any further such lawsuits, and that was passed in this House in an act in November of 1994.
So the legal settlements negotiated between the town of Norman Wells and the complainants are as follows: Wellex received $70,000 costs for losses and damages and $30,000 for legal fees; Kenaston received $20,000 costs for losses and damages and $10,000 in legal fees. There was also some $96,133.09 accepted by the town of Norman Wells to discontinue the action against the contractors. The upshot is that it cost us $215,000 to settle that particular court case. We learned a lesson, passed some legislation and hopefully nobody can do it to us again, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.