Thank you, Madam Chair. The communities are involved with everything. If a community is interested in community empowerment, the staff goes in there and talks with them and does the presentation to the community on community empowerment. There is open discussion going on with the community and the department. We get our ideas from the communities on community empowerment. There is a complete, open discussion with the community when the community is interested in community empowerment. I will get Penny Ballantyne to add on some more, but community empowerment is initiated by the community so the department listens to the community. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the development of the community empowerment initiative is a dynamic process. We are talking to communities. We are talking to regional leadership meetings. We are hearing from MLAs. We are hearing from the NWT Association of Municipalities. We are getting input from a number of sources, but the bottom line is that the process is driven by the individual communities. It is at that level that the information is provided. The community makes a choice as to whether or not they wish to get into a transfer arrangement. We are trying to focus on the development aspect, on the capacity building aspect and we are not out there flogging transfers and pushing transfers on communities. It is very much a developmental approach that is being taken and where it looks to the community that it is in their best interest to take on a function. Where we can demonstrate that it is cost effective for them to do so, then we facilitate that process. Thank you.

Madam Chair. Not at all. Simply stated, this is a dynamic process. The department is working with communities on an individual level to identify their needs, their capacity through a planning and assessment process. It is the community's decision as to whether or not they are interested in taking on further responsibilities. If they are, we provide the information. We facilitate that process with the community. In some communities there is a more tentative approach being taken. The community is not sure. In those cases we facilitate a trial period where the community can manage a program on behalf of the government for a period and that is fine. It is very much driven at the pace of the community. The initiative is really about community development, about building capacity and about, not just the simple transfer programs, but those programs being successfully operated by the community down the road. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The nine positions I was talking about in my opening statement have been there in the department for some time. They are already there. Those are the people who have been working with the communities and up to now there have been 79 presentations done to communities. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We have distributed quite a bit of materials to the MLAs already. Maybe I will let Penny answer some of that, but we have distributed quite a bit of materials to the Members in this House.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the department has produced a number of resource materials for the use of communities. These have also been distributed to Members for their information, so they can be aware of what we provided in their constituencies. First and foremost amongst these is the Stepping Forward Community Planning Process binder. Every Member has received one. It includes a series of six booklets. They are how-to booklets. They are meant for community people to be able to take and facilitate community planning. Our community empowerment co-ordinators in the region are trained in delivering this material, that is their job. They go into the communities and deliver these workshops, but those materials are there for the

use of the community, if the community wishes to take on this process on their own, they do not have to do it our way. It is simply a tool.

Another resource that has been provided is the GNWT training catalogue. In August, MACA co-ordinated a training fair with all GNWT departments. We pulled together training resources from every department in the government and produced a training catalogue, that puts between two covers every training program that every department offers for community people. Copies of that have also been distributed to Members as well as to every mayor and chief in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I thought I was supposed to go back to 1960s for a while. I was talking about 79 presentations to communities on community empowerment. The RICE teams have been trained already to do these presentations to communities. We have done 79 presentations introducing community empowerment to communities, not training programs. Thank you, Madam Chair.