Thank you. Vehicles and equipment. Mr. Roland.

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I will ask Mr. Lovely to respond.

Thank you. Mr. Lovely.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As with any other privatization initiative or any other situation where the government buys its services from the private sector, we're assuming that we're going to get competitive costs, competitive services. However, we don't just base the assessment of the cost on the amount of money that we're spending on the actual contractual arrangements. There are also spin-off benefits to the economy of having these services provided by the private sector and by increasing the capacity, in some of the communities, to provide those services to other members of the public. In the case of Inuvik, it's a bit different because I think there's an established garage operation in Inuvik. But in many of the smaller communities, if the government doesn't get out of the business, there will never be services provided to the public from the private sector. But as with any situation, if the government simply can't afford to pay the kinds of rates -- or exorbitant rates, let's say -- if the private sector doesn't respond, then we would have to reassess the situation and decide whether we do it through a staffing arrangement, or, if we could go out and negotiate a better deal with a particular company. There is a whole range of things that would have to be considered before we would go back to actually having staff do the job for us.

Thank you. Vehicles and equipment. Mr. Roland.

(Translation) Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, on the actual privatization itself, it's been a couple of years since the other maintenance garages were privatized: one in the Baffin, one in the Keewatin and there were some in Yellowknife, too, that were privatized, and Inuvik was the next logical place to do this.

I share some of the Member's sentiments that we do need to be compassionate to the employees that we are laying off and we should try to assist them as much as we can and make sure they get back up on their feet, and I think we're doing that in quite a number of ways through the different packages. I heard concern earlier, though, from other Members, about making sure that any process we get into is fair to everyone, including those that are in the private sector already.

One of the things I should mention, too, is that because we are eliminating the vehicle pools these garages will have less vehicles to work on, so that's part of the thinking there.

Thank you. Vehicles and equipment. Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister just mentioned laying people off and the fact that people have to be compassionate and all this. What I want to know is, when the people are being laid off, does the department consider the length of time a person has been working for

the government and affirmative action. In other words, are people who are eligible for affirmative action the last people to be laid off?

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, the Department of Public Works and Services follows the same process as the rest of the government, and I will ask the deputy minister to explain part of that process.

Mr. Lovely.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When determining where budget reductions are going to be made and where lay-offs might occur, the first emphasis is on where the savings can be achieved, and as a result of identifying the savings, what happens is that the staff who currently provide those services or who are in those areas are the first who are considered for lay-off, and, at that point, the determination of who gets a lay-off notice is based on who does the job that is no longer going to be done. However, when the lay-off notice is actually issued, those individuals have the highest level of staffing priority across the Government of the Northwest Territories, in other regions and in their own communities. Staffing priority means that things like length of service, affirmative action -- all those kinds of things are taken into account in deciding how people will be reassigned and, in many cases -- I can think of some of the more recent ones in Public Works and Services, particularly when we've talked about aboriginal staff -they've been quite successful in obtaining jobs in other locations because they have been given priority hiring status.

But we don't do the assessment of who should be laid off on the basis of length of service or anything like that. It's who is actually doing the work that will no longer be done. People get preference following that.

Thank you. Vehicles and equipment, operations and maintenance, total operations and maintenance, $3.278 million. Agreed?

Agreed.

--- Agreed

Thank you. Page 7-16, detail of capital, vehicles and equipment. Equipment acquisition, Fort Smith, total region, $143,000. Mr. Roland.

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, there are five vehicles being purchased.

Thank you. Mr. Roland.