Thank you, welcome to the Assembly. Recognition of visitors in the gallery, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko, welcome to the Assembly. Recognition of visitors in the gallery, Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize some visitors in the gallery from the Yellowknife North constituency, Mrs. Caroline Larocque, Miss Charlotte Woods and Beatrice Woods and I would like to add that I have known this family since I was a very young boy and I would like to welcome them to the gallery.

Thank you, welcome to the Assembly. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Mr. Henry.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize some constituents of Yellowknife South, Mabel Loutitt, Angus Christensen and Loli Willy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Mr. Ng.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker I would like to recognize a former constituent of Kugluktuk. Richard Hytuk is in the gallery. Thank you.

Thank you, welcome to the Assembly. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Oral questions. Mr. Miltenberger.

The Minister Responsible for Public Works and Services, Mr. Arlooktoo.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The user pay/user say initiative was one of the new directions of Cabinet, earlier his year and the philosophy there is that, once we let managers manage and departments take care of their own utility costs, phone costs and other costs, that they will be able to manage their resources and money in a more cost effective way and therefore we expect that departments will be able to deliver their own services at a less cost than was done previously.

Thank you, oral questions supplementary, Mr. Miltenberger.

Mr. Arlooktoo.

Mr. Speaker, we do recognize that there may be problems in some areas where we are providing departments with a bit less money than we had spent previously, but that is part of the overall deficit reduction of programs that we have and yes, indeed, we will keep an eye on how the departments are doing and keep track of the progress and really it is too early to tell how the departments are doing, but we do expect them to live within the budgets that we give them.

Oral questions, Mr. Evaloarjuk.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services. Yesterday the Minister of Health said that in reply to a question from Iqaluit MLA that the money for the Baffin and Inuvik hospitals will be found when construction begins. Construction is scheduled for 1999 and the year 2000. Where will we get this money?

The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Ng.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The funding for those projects will have to come from a combination of federal funding contributions and from capital estimates that are approved through this Legislative Assembly, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Oral questions supplementary, Mr. Evaloarjuk.

I did not hear his reply, but my second question, can the Minister reply what happened to the eleven million dollars that the federal government gave us for the Inuvik and Baffin hospitals?

Mr. Ng, perhaps you could respond to his first question, clarify his first question, and then answer the second one.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, thank you. In response to the first question I indicated that the funding would have to come from a combination of contributions from the federal government for their cost sharing arrangement and secondly through appropriations approval through this Government of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly, to finance the projects. In respect to the supplementary question, in response to that, on where are the payments from the federal government, the pre-payments that they have given to this government. As I have indicated in answering questions to other honourable Members, that money has gone into the general consolidated revenue fund of this government in the years that they were received, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.