Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll refer that to Mr. Christensen.

Mr. Chairman, we don't have the worksheets with us on a community-by-community basis, but we could certainly provide an example showing how it is calculated for a community. Just to point out another feature of the formula is that we use all of these factors in the formula, then it allows us to distribute the funding allocation that we have on a equitable basis amongst communities. This formula doesn't generate a dollar amount immediately after going through this calculation for the community; it becomes part of another formula which is a distribution formula for a fixed amount of money that we

have available for municipal operating assistance funding, for example.

I have here a blank of the formula, but I don't have numbers in it to offer as an example.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will start off by commenting on community empowerment. I believe it's a motherhood issue; people being able to decide for themselves at a local level, I think, is important. At the same time, as Mr. Picco suggested, I also have concerns about community empowerment. The first question I have is the Minister mentioned earlier on in some comments that she had a committee set up to deal with community empowerment. How many people are on the committee, what does she see as a role for them and how many communities does she intend to do community empowerment programs for this present fiscal year? Thank you.

The Cabinet Committee for Social Programs and Community Empowerment has been established and this is chaired by Penny Ballantyne of MACA. Included in that committee is the Cabinet secretary, principal secretary, special advisor to the Premier, secretary to the FMBS, DM of Justice and the DMs of Health and Social Services, ED&T and Public Works and Services, who chair the three envelope committees. A coordinating team has been struck to coordinate the empowerment initiatives, and report to the steering committee. Three task teams have been established by MACA to advance the empowerment priority. These are the community development task team, the community opportunities task team and the infrastructure task team. These task teams have representatives from various GNWT departments and a workplan has been identified to assist the task team in meeting some of the deadlines recommended by the Cabinet Committee on Social Programs and Community Empowerment.

I'm just going to ask Penny to add on to that because I know she has been involved with this committee since it started and she's chairing that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the steering committee that I chair is the committee of deputies and senior bureaucrats. We coordinate, in addition to the community empowerment initiative, the community wellness initiative, income support reform and the other related initiatives that are currently either under way or in development.

In addition to the steering committee, there have been a number of working groups established to do the preparatory work for community empowerment. Part of this involves looking at all of the programs and services currently delivered by our government at the community level, and identifying those programs and services that would be appropriate to transfer to communities and those which would require the GNWT to retain some level of interest or involvement in. That work is not yet completed, it is under way and we expect to have it completed within the month.

We report on a regular basis to the Cabinet Committee for Social Programs and Community Empowerment. We take our progress reports to that Cabinet committee and they provide us with ongoing direction. We are aiming to bring an action plan to Cabinet by the middle of June, with the component identified; the tools that have currently been underdeveloped and are being developed right now include a community planning process that would be tailored to the needs of communities of various sizes and degrees of capability. It's very much modeled on the kind of community leaders' conference that the city of Yellowknife undertook, where the city council worked with community leaders from other groups; for example, voluntary organizations and non-profit groups. Leaders from those other types of organizations work together with city councillors. That's the kind of model that we really want to encourage at the community level and to facilitate as one where the elected officials work with other leaders in the community to identify community needs and priorities. From them would flow the assessment of the community's capacity to undertake those priorities it has identified. That was referred to earlier by the Minister.

So we are extremely busy at the present time trying to get these tools developed, so that what we take out to the communities will really be useful for them. In addition, a full communication strategy is being developed to ensure that communities have information about what the community empowerment opportunities might be for them. We're very much looking forward to getting into a dialogue with communities so that we can make sure that what we're providing in the action plan is really going to meet their needs.

I would be pleased to provide more information if the Member wishes, but I'll stop there for now. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One question I didn't detect getting an answer to was in how many communities do you intend this fiscal year to initiate community empowerment strategies.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I'll refer that to Mrs. Ballantyne.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, MACA currently is involved with a number of communities. I apologize for not having the list at hand, but we could certainly provide it to the Member of communities where transfers are in progress or have been completed. Off the top of my head, that would include Cape Dorset; Holman Island, where we're just concluding; Pangnirtung; Fort Good Hope. There are a number of them that are currently in progress. It's our plan to have those opportunities made available to all communities within the next few months, so that any community that is interested will have the opportunity to get involved in community empowerment. We've been listening to the concerns that have been coming from Members and communities about the pace of change. We're also getting concerns from communities that it's not going fast enough and they're quite anxious to get on with it.

So I think the opportunity will be there for every community. In terms of how many are actually going to take up the opportunities this year, I think that really remains to be seen. But the opportunity will be there for all.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Has the department any strategies in place to alleviate cherry-picking, if you will; picking nice little parts, maybe water delivery but not sewage pick-up, that type of thing?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The answer to the Member's question is yes. Departments are identifying those programs that need to belong together and we would be presenting those programs to communities as a package. Thank you.

You had mentioned earlier about three task force groups. Which one of those will be working with communities to provide training and ongoing facilitation of the training component of community transfer?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The task teams that I mentioned earlier are just the planners. They'll be the people that will plan. The implementation will be done by the regional departments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.