Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Ng. It is in regard to my Member's statement and also in regard to the reasoning that we are unable to fund a mammogram program in the Northwest Territories, especially for a territorial-wide organization to scan our residents to try to detect cancer at an early stage. Yet, time and time again, I stood up in this House, especially dealing with this particular Minister. I have asked for items that are of concern to my riding. I did again in a Member's statement and I find it ironic, that we have a study that is going on in regard to the Med-Emerg Report which I believe to date, and the Minister could maybe assist me on this one, in regard to the amount of money that we have spent to date on this study? Could he clarify if it has cost this government to date, $850,000?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, in regard to the mammogram program, I believe that they were looking for $60,000, yet were able to sole-source contracts such as this in a range of some $800,000. Yet the government keeps telling myself, the community I represent and the people of the

Northwest Territories we do not have money for their health care. We have money for consultations, especially southern consultants to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on studies, yet these individuals do not know what it is like to live in communities, having to go see a doctor in which you have to wait a number of weeks before you see one. It appalls me that we can afford to spend this kind of money. Also, why was this contract sole sourced to a southern company and not put out to public tender?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In regard to the study that is going on and being able to find funds to assist or implement the hospitals in finding the equipment that is needed, such as a mammogram machine, assisting the doctors and the nurses in the communities to assist the residents to detect breast cancer, is that part of the study that is presently being done in the area of $800,000? Would that pay for a machine such as this?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I must say that of all of us Ministers, no one was overly anxious to take on this job of tackling potential and possible revisions to the Business Incentive Policy. Each of the elements that make up the policy are rather contentious, hated and loved by different sectors and members of the public. There is the policy itself, which is neither black or white. It is a policy which in general terms, we believe, as a government, has brought enormous benefits to the people and the economy of the north, but it does need some revisions. I have been tasked as a Minister to undertake consultation to look at potential revision to the policy. I have done that. We have taken some suggestions from the standing committee, none of which were unanimous. I must add, none of the amendments that were suggested by the committee were unanimous. So I have the task of trying to come up with some proposed revisions, going to Cabinet with them, getting some blessing and to then take the proposed revisions out to the public for further consultation. I have yet to approach Cabinet to make the suggestions to the revisions in detail. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate that nobody in Cabinet wants to make the changes, the understanding I get from the Minister's response. We are now into two years almost of this new government, with new ways of doing things. I was getting the impression that we are going to end our terms before anything happens. I wonder if there is some way that the Minister could put a little urgency on this matter? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I must remind the Member that I did not shrink from the responsibility. I did take on this task with all of the naivety of a Minister that thought he could deliver all types of only positive, amendment revisions that would be totally supported, by not only members of the committee but all Members of the Legislature and the general public. There is no such creature possible. The present policy has, on any given day, great numbers of supporters and also retractors as well. The revisions, in order to make sense, also requires that the public be quite informed as well as the Members of the Legislature about what the nature of the existing policy is in the first place and to get a fairly accurate assessment, an honest assessment, of what the benefits of the policy have been to date. I know that in many corners some people have been sceptic, some people have absolutely refused to believe that there have been any benefits derived from the implementation of this policy in the first instance. It has been difficult. One only has to recall the discussions at the standing committee stage to understand how controversial and difficult it is to arrive at even some remote assemblance of consensus, on any number of whole range of issues that this policy gives rise to.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I agree that there was a lot of disagreement amongst Members on the Committee but there was one thing everybody seemed to agree on, that was the amendment of the grandfather clause, whereby large firms such as big airlines, Imperial Oil even, are listed as people who are eligible for BIP. I think the membership did agree that those large firms should be removed from the BIP list. There were some positive aspects of this whole operation. I am surprised that we have not moved on at least those that an agreement were on. So I will ask the Minister, if no one in the Cabinet wants to handle this, would he consider handing it over to me?

--Applause