Thank you. The honourable Minister, Mr. Ng.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, it is not in the terms of reference, but time was critical in this and it is in the terms of the contract itself. The urgency, as I indicated before, was because of the fact that we are going through some major reforms in the health care system. I had made commitments in this House to try to bring on stream the Iqaluit and the Inuvik hospitals in as timely a fashion as possible. Trying to meet a '98 start of construction schedule required a plan for funding for the '98 budget, which would have been required by the fall of 1997, Mr. Chairman. That is why there is urgency on this matter. Thank you.

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

Thank you. The honourable Minister for Health and Social Services, Mr. Ng.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I recognize the honourable Members concern, and the concern raised by other Members. I think, there has also been some positive comments about the need to get this done. The issue is not the need, but the timeliness of it because of the manner in which we have fast tracked this strategic planning process by using this southern firm. That is causing some concern amongst one or two Members. I go back in respect to the issue about the urgency of having it done. Not just in respect to the capital projects, I had made the commitments to try to bring on stream in as timely a fashion as possible, but also the fact that, really, there is a lot of information out there in respect to health and social services programs. We have no real basis of predicting where the needs are in our programs. Historically, the department has always had programs they are funding and have continued to fund them regardless of the efficiency of those programs. We recognize that they are not all as effective as could possibly be, and there could be better ways of using our money. The appropriateness of where we were spending our money is another matter. The later we left it, and not challenged some of our dollars into some of the higher priority areas or the more effective areas, to me, could be a waste of money. Also, we had, within the government itself, an urgent need to develop division transition plans and implementation plans in preparation for division. That was another factor. Those plans we were trying to accelerate to have done by May of this year. As all Members know, we are going to be coming back to review those plans. We are into another business planning cycle coming up in August for a fall budget session for the '98 fiscal year. There were all these factors that pressed on us, time wise, to try to see if we were heading in the right direction as a department and with some of our reforms. This was another one of the pressures that we faced in dealing with our reforms in a timely fashion. Hence, the urgency in trying to get some objective analysis of what we have in programs and services and if we are heading in the right direction with some of our changes. Mr. Chairman, thank you.

Thank you. Final question for the time being. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Mr. Ng.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we did recognize the sensitivity of this, and we did consider whether northern firms could handle it. But the ultimate decision was we did not think they had the multi-disciplinary expertise available to them to carry out this project in a timely manner. And that is what I have said, time and time again. If the honourable Member thinks there are problems with it, he can pursue it. Thank you.

Thank you. For the record, we are considering the activity summary of the Department of Health and Social Services. I have Mr. Roland.

Thank you. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the salary budgets stay the same. Some of the operational and maintenance dollars change, as Mr. Ramsden indicated, because of the withdrawal of funds from Delta House, the withdrawal of funds from the seniors residence in Deline... there is approximately $1 million dollars that would not have shown in this Inuvik Health Board budget, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you. The Honourable Member for Inuvik, Mr. Roland.

Thank you. The Honourable Minister Ng.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, there would not be any requirement for any layoffs unless the Board chose to. As I have indicated to the Honourable Member for Inukput, unless the Board chose to implement some layoffs on the admin side and put them into the program side. Dollar wise, because of finances that we provided to them, unless they chose to structurally change their mix of professionals and staff, there would not be a requirement for any layoffs, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you. Operations and maintenance, total operations and maintenance is $98,587,000. Agreed? The Honourable Member for Thebacha, Mr. Miltenberger. No? Agreed. Thank you. We agree? Thank you. Mr. Henry.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, I did have my hand up. I believed I caught your attention, but you obviously missed it. Sorry about that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I support Mr. Roland's position there. Let us get on with it. The decision is made. I think the questions have to be answered. I think the Minister did state it will not give you an answer whether you are getting your hospital or not, so I support you in pursuing that. But I do not think this is the avenue that will do it.

My question on this, Mr. Speaker, is it looks like 95 per cent or so of the budget is directed towards treatment and five per cent towards prevention. Does the Minister have any figures from the previous year on how much has been spent on treatment and how much on prevention? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Henry. Mr. Henry, I apologize. I was not watching that way. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I do not have the specifics. I know there has not been enough attention paid towards prevention, and even now it is just the start of trying to develop some funds identified specifically towards prevention. We are hoping that we can increase that percentage as the years go by.

Thank you. The honourable Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. Henry.