Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do mind but I will defer after my next question. The point I am trying to get around here, Mr. Chairman, is that under the Financial Management Board Secretariat, they also have the human

resource planning services and the human resource policy development services, as we learned earlier this week when we did the office of the Premier and the Executive. The Executive also controls X-number of dollars in positions for the Department of Personnel, which is the same as human resource planning services. My question to the Minister is, in this downsizing it also seems like FMBS is taking on some extra responsibilities. Could the Minister explain to me, is the human resource planning services and the human resource policy development services within the FMBS, specifically for that department? Or is it for the overall direction of the Government of the Northwest Territories?

Actually, the reverse is happening, Mr. Chairman. Our human resource group are involved with labour relation negotiations, appeals, et cetera. That is what our role is here. I want to assure my honourable colleague that my department is capable of handling the workload it has with the resources that are available to it and we have them and I am confident will be able to see us through to April 1, 1999.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a quick question on the $100,000 that the Minister alluded to earlier on for the work related project, I note that Nunavut will be receiving $39 million over three years for education and training. If I look at that dividing over three years, around $13 million. I look at Nunavut College, their annual budget is around $11 million. I am wondering where the $100,000 came about, because it seems like very much of a drop in the bucket to the $13 million that they will have to contribute towards education and training.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If my memory serves me correct, it is $39.8 million. It is federal money, part of the $150 million that was voted in Cabinet at the federal level to prepare Inuit people for the Nunavut positions to meet one of the criteria, and that is to ensure that the civil service, the affirmative action policy, or the ratio of the civil servants in Nunavut is equivalent to the demographics of Nunavut, in terms of aboriginal people and it has no bearing our budget, per se, in terms of our delivery of current programs.

These are transitional costs approved by the federal government to meet the requirements for aboriginal people in the civil service that is going to come forward in the Nunavut government. The $100,000 was a request from the eastern Arctic NIC and NTI, I believe. NIC I think, where they are having a major conference sponsored by themselves, the federal government, and others and asked us for a contribution to this conference that is going to deal with how we are going to go about developing a job strategy in a difficult fiscal world and it is going to deal with issues like job sharing. A different way of doing things in terms of job creation, et cetera. It is separate from the Arctic College funding that was provided by the feds. This is money that we provided directly as a contribution to this major conference on how we are going to go about developing a job strategy in the new Nunavut government with the limited fiscal resources that are now available to it, both now and in the future. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The point was, I just see it as a drop in the bucket, the $100,000 compared to $13 million is irrelevant. I believe and I have stated before that I think Nunavut will have an awful hard time spending $13 million over each year for the next three years on that particular aspect. I certainly do not disagree with the initiative of the federal government that was what was negotiated. I do not have a problem, it is just a comparison of this $100,000 to add to this $13 million. It just seems like a drop there in comparison. But, if I can ask the Minister, I think it would probably help a lot if he was able to talk about some of the activities that the Division Review Secretariat would be involved in regarding the new western territory. I think there is concern raised here of the amount of work that seems to be done for Nunavut and I think it would be important if the Minister could tell us about what types of work is done and in particular, what type of work the secretariat has done related to the west, to this point. Thank you.

If I may though, I think for clarity's purpose, just so Mr. Henry understands, that the money from the federal government in relationship to Arctic College, et cetera, is training dollars to train people. We are providing a $100,000 contribution to a large conference and workshop. It is not part of the training component, it is a workshop and conference, just for clarity's purposes for Mr. Henry. The secretariat, the progress that is being that is being made on developing a framework for a new government in Nunavut, this being its focus, at least in the short-term, the last 12 months, has been primarily in the area, in terms of responding to Footprints in the Snow 2 towards setting the stage for negotiations of formula, et cetera. The last four or five months we have been working closely with Mr. Antoine's group in the constitutional side of things, trying to get a little more active, trying to bring them into the equation, of course because of my theory of we are negotiating two formulas, we are negotiating two new governments. Our involvement up to about three of four months ago was very limited. I think it would be fair to say that. It was primarily, as I say, involved in developing a series of plans and responses on the Nunavut issue as the constitutional discussions get under way there will be a greater involvement with it with Mr. Overbull's group, but at this time there has been a limited involvement because there has been limited progress.

I want to assure my honourable colleague that it is not just this department, all departments will have stability, and I tried to allude to that in the House, in question period. Stability, once we get through this, but we must get through this, to balance the budget and move on to greater and better things and I want to assure both my colleague and others that I have spoken with that I can not say unequivocally that this is the end, but as Finance Minister I am confident that all our energies and our objectives will be to reassure the civil service and the constituency at large that the balancing of the budget will bring about the stability that is necessary, not just for those that are employed, but for those who are not, for those that need medical care, for those that need education, et cetera. The balancing of the budget will bring about an environment of productive thought rather than the environment of concern, instability, that has existed the last 12 months. That is why I encourage all of you to make the tough decisions that we have to make. Let us move onward and get this budget approved and let us get into balancing the budget and moving forward in the year, year and a half that we have to providing productive new policies and new initiatives for our constituencies at large. Thank you.

We are going to take the same approach as we took the last time around, and that is to try to deal with those positions based upon some empty positions, attrition, severance packages, et cetera. I mean that whole process is in place. I think it would be fair to say that when we did the first 12 months, the changes we made and we have said this in the House, that we did make a concerted effort to get rid of the empty positions first, the money accordingly. The empty positions are becoming less and less and less or vacant positions if that is the right term. I do not have at my fingertips what that is but if you just give me a moment, I will consult with Mr. Voytilla, who deals with that on a day to day basis. Excuse me.

Thank you. Every effort has been made, Mr. Voytilla assures me, to make every effort to work with the staff, try to reassign where the qualifications are and where there other vacant positions and to work earnestly, and I say this very sincerely, to avoid as minimum layoffs as possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My honourable colleague is correct. These are transferred positions from the government to the boards. I do not think it is part of the reductions because we transferred the positions, we have to transfer the money.