Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Mrs. Thompson, would you like to respond?

Thank you, Mrs. Thompson. Mr. Ootes.

I appreciate the Minister's comments and I want to thank her for them. I would like to refer to a community such as Yellowknife, which is a little different than a community that in the Baffin or in the outlying areas of other parties of the Territories. The city of Yellowknife would also be interested in community empowerment; however, I want to advise and make a comment on the fact that, yes, the city is interested, but they fully realize that this has to be funded to the degree that the service is being provided at now. That may be a little more difficult to identify and to transfer than it is in the smaller communities. I just want to make sure that it is understood that the city and the larger communities are also interested in this, but they're not going to be as quick in wanting to take over these services because, in order to do so, there are complications with them taking them over, probably mostly centred around financial reasons. So if we're going to have community empowerment, we can't just do it in one location. We have to make sure that we also look at centres like Yellowknife and do so with some fairness. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Mrs. Thompson.

Thank you. I have the honourable Member for Inuvik, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to say that it's good to see the department taking on this community empowerment with moving on the issue. At the same time, it's unfortunate that it happens to fall in a time of financial restraint. I guess that's where my comments will be heading. It's good to see that communities are going to be able to take on more of the responsibility of running programs themselves, but there is concern there, as well, as to funding of certain areas of that transfer. I know at the NWTAM in March, there was some apprehension expressed by the communities of all of a sudden being able to take over the control, especially in these times.

Further on that, the transfers that we're talking about block funding -- the water and sewer programs -- I have a concern there, especially since in Inuvik there has been the implementation of water meters in the previous year. I don't think anybody has exact numbers or fairly accurate numbers of the actual cost of running the program since installation. Some of them are still ongoing, I believe, or just finished up. As I've heard the figure of speech, a "yardstick of efficiency" being used and calculations that have come about with that, seems to be adding some concern to the municipality as to what has actually come about at the end of the day when it comes to taking over the program. Not only is there a reduction in what they were receiving before, but the added burden of monitoring the system that was put in place by this government. I know the municipality of Inuvik was not in favour of installing water meters for a long time but it became part of the program. So there are some concerns there at the end of the day of how much it will actually cost. Would the installation of meters mean a further reduction in what they would normally get because of the cost of monitoring the system? That's a key part of their discussions that I believe they will be having with your department.

I think it is good to see that we are, as a government, starting to take the steps necessary to provide the communities with the power to control themselves. I guess adding to that, you'll have some communities that will be able to take on a task with minimal support, then others that will need a fair bit of support, and that's expected. But at the same time, as throughout every other program, there is concern that the ones that manage themselves well shouldn't be penalized more for the sake of others that don't manage themselves well. That's going to be another area of concern.

If one community can take its funding and make it go further and supply more services, more power to them; but it wouldn't be good to see communities that manage themselves well lose more because other communities that do poor management require more.

My main issue, as we go along through this program, will be on the transfers, block funding that's proposed by the department for water and sewer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Honourable Minister, Mrs. Thompson.

Thank you. I have the honourable Member for Iqaluit, Mr. Picco. General comments.

Thank you, Mr. Picco. Mrs. Thompson.

Thank you, Mrs. Thompson. I have the honourable Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. Henry.

You would prefer to ask general questions?

Does the committee agree?

Mr. Barnabas.

I have a motion on the floor to report progress which is not debatable. All those in favour? All those opposed? Some Members voted twice so I'm going to call the motion again.

--- Laughter

All those in favour of the motion to report progress? All those opposed? The motion is defeated.

--- Defeated

Line By Line

Directorate

We are on page 10-14, directorate, operations and maintenance, total operations and maintenance, $5.544 million. Agreed?