Thank you. The honourable Minister for Transportation, Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the negotiated contract is usually brought forward by a company or a development corporation with the support of the Member of the Legislative Assembly of that particular area or community. Our staff are then directed by the Minister to go ahead and sit down and start negotiating with that particular entity. Once an agreement is, more or less, agreed upon by the staff, then I, as the Minister, take it to Cabinet for final approval. Thank you.

Thank you. Corporate services. You have a couple more, Mr. Roland.

Thank you. The honourable Minister for Transportation, Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in that case we try to go by some criteria, and one of them is that there has to be political peace in the communities or in that region. We try to make everybody that is going to be effected in that area aware of the situation and try to get everybody in support of the negotiated contract. From there, once those criteria are fulfilled, then we feel that it is enough grounds to move ahead with it. Thank you.

Thank you. Corporate services. Final supplementary, Mr. Roland.

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have to take it on a case by case basis, one contract at a time. That is the way that we would approach it. Just to clarify, the negotiated contract is there to try to help mainly developing aboriginal corporations get a foothold into the business world, to try to help them to gain experience and build up their expertise and build up their resources in that particular field. That was the intention of it in the smaller communities. I guess, years ago, when that was not happening, we would see a lot of companies from outside the communities come in and do this particular work and leave nothing behind once they get done. In this particular case, the negotiated contract allows the community or the regional corporation to do the work, hire the people in the communities, acquire the different equipment and resources that are required, and leave the money right in the communities where it belongs. This is the general idea behind the negotiated contracts. Thank you.

Thank you. Corporate services, page 10-10, operations and maintenance. Total operations and maintenance, $7,970,000. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Department of Transportation follows a negotiated transportation contracts policy. It is an actual policy of this government. It is slightly different from the Department of Public Works and Services in the sense that we sit down with the different people who want to negotiate a contract. After they meet the criteria, our staff develops or goes through a negotiation process, covers all the different areas that need to be covered in terms of the contract or requirements of the contract. Once they come to a satisfactory agreement, then it is recommended to me as the Minister and I take it to the Cabinet for approval. I think in the case of the Department of Public Works and Services, they have a set of guidelines that they follow which requires them to go to Cabinet first for approval for negotiated contracts before they actually sit down and negotiate the requirements of the contract. Thank you.

Thank you. Corporate services. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Ootes.

The honourable Minister for Transportation, Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we do not have those figures that the honourable Member is asking for until we get this budget approved. We do have a tender summary for this current year. Maybe I could provide that information that might throw some light on... I do not think it is going to change that drastically from this year to the coming year. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you. Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, in regards to the current year's budget 1996/97 fiscal year, the value of the contracts that we have out there is about $36 million and of that the public tender part of it is about 60.4 percent. For negotiated contracts, the value is about 12 percent. We have sole-source as well that is marked as 22.6 percent. For invitational tenders, 4.9 or let us say, rounded off to 5 percent. That is the value of the contract. I have figures on the number of contracts. That is about 324 contracts were sole-source out of the number. It was quite a bit, 53 percent. That is the number of contracts and public tenders were 24.4 percent and negotiated contracts that went out were 4.3 percent and the invitational tender was about 18 percent. There is a difference. I guess you could say there were fewer large contracts that went out to public tender. I guess that is the point I want to make. Thank you.

Thank you. Corporate services. Mr. Ootes, you have one more question?