Yes. The Department has had consultation and discussions with NAV Canada, and this is one of the concerns that we have with NAV Canada, is the whole question of flight service stations in the north. There is ongoing discussion with them. At this point in time, it is not really determined, whether they are going to go that route. We still have to get further consultation with them to determine that. Thank you.

(Translation) As of August 8th, there was no change to this capital project. Would the Minister please explain how the decision was made to change the plan to include CARS, instead of FSS?

Thank you again Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this decision to include CARS in this air terminal building happened towards this fall, because we had to make some decisions. If we did not find out up to this point in time, we did not know whether the flight service station is called for, I think the federal government was doing away with all the flight service stations in the north, and a few of them still have it. This one in Resolute Bay is one of them that they are wondering whether they are going to keep it or not.

There is no confirmation, there is no decision at this time, whether the federal government requires it or not. The longer we wait for that decision, the longer this project is going to delay. So we had to make a decision. We decided that we should start with the airport terminal building. We do not know whether the flight service station is going to be in there or not. It is a big price, 1.6 million dollars, additional to the 2.5 that was transferred for it. So the decision was made that instead of going for the larger flight service station, we had to settle and design the building again for a CARS operation. As a result of that the decision was made. Thank you.

(Translation) Would the Minister agree that funds were received from the Government of Canada to replace the terminal building, starting this year? It appears that federal

funds were available, but the Department of Transportation was unable to get moving fast enough to start work in this sea lift season. It was then decided to use this money elsewhere, and it was only at the last minute, that the decision to change from FSS status to CARS status was made, to justify the movement of the money to other projects. Would the Minister agree that this is how things have happened?

No, I do not agree with the interpretation of what happened here, Mr. Chairman. As I was trying to explain earlier, the longer we delay in doing any work this year, if we wait any longer then this whole project will have to be deferred until next year. So we are doing some work this year, and then we are doing the majority of the work next year, and finishing off in 1998/99.

I just want to also say that in the proposed plan, in this current plan, we were going to do a million dollars worth of work this year, two and a half million dollars next year, that is 1997/98, and one million dollars worth of work in 1998/99. But in this new proposed plan, we are planning to reduce $502,000 of work this year, and in 1997/98 we will do 1.1 million dollars work, and in 1998/99, we will do 1.2 million dollars. In our original plan, the plan was to complete the whole project by 1998/99.

With this newer plan, we are going to complete it at the same time. We are just moving some of the funds around in this first year. If we could have found out earlier this year that the federal government, whether they are going to have a flight service station or not, we could have started the work earlier. But we waited for the federal government to make a decision. They have not made a decision. We needed to get some work done. So we had to make a decision.

If you are concerned that if we move money around, then, we could have left the money in there, and the money would not have been put to work. It would have had to get lapsed next year anyways. Instead of doing that, we put some of that money to work in other places. Thank you.

(Translation) Thank you Mr. Chairman. Can the Minister provide copies of the correspondence with the Resolute Bay air terminal from the federal government for me to review?

Yes. I will get that information that the honourable Member is requesting from the department. Thank you.

(Translation). No. I will get back to him. Thank you.

(Translation) Right now I am not prepared for it. I will get back to you. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, just for clarification. I am not going to make any excuses for using my second language, but it is a factor some times. The need for clarification here is that, when I am talking about the plan, is that, some of you that are new to this House, in the previous government, which I regard ourselves, as a continuation of. We did not just cut off at some point and totally start anew. This is an ongoing process.

In 1993, when I was the ordinary MLA, I tabled a petition regarding paving of the highway around the Fort Liard-Fort Simpson area. There was some response from the department noting that funding could not be found on short notice, and so forth. When I am talking about "it is in the plans", I am referring to it by saying that, yes, this has been in discussion, and the community has been involved in it with this department on this issue for quite a few years now. That is what I was referring to when I was saying "in the plan". No, there is no second list of anything like that. When I was making reference yesterday, in the unedited Hansard, that is what I was making reference to. Thank you.