Thank you, Madam Chair. The MACA superintendents in the regions are taking a lead role in community empowerment. We are expecting them to do that, to communicate with other departments when they deal with community empowerment with the communities. For the RICE teams, the superintendents get together so they always know what is going on and they are working as a team for community empowerment to happen within that region. We expect the MACA superintendent to be the main co-ordinator of community empowerment for those regions. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My question is regarding the communities of Detah and Ndilo and I am assuming this is the proper place to ask because it affects both capital and O and M, the way they are treated. The communities of Detah and Ndilo are one community in that they are governed by the Yellowknife Dene First Nation's chief and band council. They are trying to amalgamate the two communities into one. At the present time, they receive O and M dollars for the community of Detah, but they do not receive any for Ndilo. They have to apply piece-meal, for instance, for dollars for new roads in Ndilo and they do not have money to clean the roads in Ndilo. They are not getting dollars for recreation and this is partially because Ndilo is within Yellowknife city limits. Similarly, Ndilo used to be in the capital plan and today, if you look in here a little further on, they are not in there. At what stage is the plan to amalgamate Detah and Ndilo into one community? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am aware of the Member's concern because I have met with the chiefs of those two communities and I know the department has been working on this for some time and we are sensitive to the Member's concern. I am going to ask my deputy minister to update the Member on his issue. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, over the past couple of months, Mr. Al Menard, at the request of the community, has been involved in trying to facilitate discussions between the City of Yellowknife and the communities of Detah and Ndilo, with a view to try to work out some of the overlap issues that occur that the Member just described. I do not have an update with me today, but we could certainly provide one to the Member very quickly. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. One of the problems happening right now is that it appears as though

some money for Ndilo may be going to the City of Yellowknife, although it may not be. The people living in Ndilo may be floating around out there and no one is actually getting money for them to provide recreation and that type of thing. This is creating a hardship. The formal amalgamation will take quite some time to occur. Some departments treat Ndilo as a separate entity from Yellowknife. Could this department begin to treat Ndilo as separate from Yellowknife even though they have not formally accomplished their objective of amalgamating into one community? Can this department begin treating them as one community? If not as one community, then at least Ndilo as a separate community from Yellowknife. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We have Al Menard talking with the City of Yellowknife on this issue. We are willing to sit down with the community and work with them on this issue. We will have to update the Member on what has been happening with the talks between Yellowknife and our staff member. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I appreciate that Mr. Menard is working with the band council and with the city council in trying to work something out. This process could take a long time. If it is possible for the department to treat Ndilo as a separate entity from Yellowknife, prior to the formal amalgamation that will occur at some point in the future? Who knows, this may take five or ten years. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I am going to let my deputy minister answer that because she is more aware of that situation. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, can we fund Ndilo separately or will we do that? Today we cannot say with certainty. I am aware the block funding arrangement we have with the City of Yellowknife includes the population of Ndilo which, as the Member pointed out, technically sits within the city limits. There would have to be discussions with the City and with the community to look at how we might extract some portion of the funding, or if that is even a viable thing to do. Certainly the residents of Ndilo and Detah have access to City of Yellowknife facilities and utilize them. That would be expected to continue. I do not know whether we can do this. We certainly are willing to talk to the community about it further and see what we can do to try to get a shorter term solution to the problem he has described here. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Regarding the population being included in the block funding for Yellowknife, my assistant has spoken to the person who put together the block funding arrangement. She has informed me that Ndilo was not included. There were no dollars included for Ndilo in the block funding. Also, although the Ndilo residents have access to the City of Yellowknife's recreational facilities, not many people actually take advantage of those facilities for the simple fact that they cannot afford to. The residents of Fort Rae also have access to those facilities, as do the residents of Ingraham Trail. It is very difficult for me to accept that they are getting much more access to those facilities than the people from Rae or the Ingraham Trail. I would hope that we could come to some solution, so we do not have to wait until the amalgamation is legally formalized before Ndilo can start getting its own funding. If they are included in the City of Yellowknife's block funding, then it should be a simple matter of cutting them out and reducing the City's block funding by whatever amount the community of Ndilo would normally get if it was another community the same size, say it was sitting in Fort Franklin's area or whatever. I do not expect a reply, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. In January, a letter went out stating that we had given the band $15,000 to help them research the issues for discussion with the City. We have started the process with the band. Thank you, Madam Chair.