Thank you. Mr. Todd.

Well, my understanding is the process is now underway. I do not know whether it can be turned back, but it is underway to seek leave to appeal from the Supreme Court of Canada based upon our belief that human rights has no jurisdiction in our area. I am not sure if that can be turned back or not, I would have to check with the people who are the legal experts in the arrangement. I can tell you this, that it is our desire, so everybody hears it, to make an arrangement and to negotiate an appropriate arrangement that is equitable and is affordable. I fundamentally believe in the previous regimes they were close to that, for whatever reason it did not take place and we are certainly not close to it now, based upon what the expectation is out there and what I hear from the UNW. So if there is a desire to come together and reach a reasonable, affordable deal, we would make that effort, absolutely.

Thank you. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Inuvik, Mr. Roland.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I believe it was the last steering committee meeting we had in which the chair of the Inuvik board and the chair of the Baffin board were in attendance. We made a conscious decision that the strategic planning process was near completion and I am happy to report that it is at the end of the initial stage right now with the report, that the capital planning initiatives for both Inuvik and Iqaluit could be accelerated to a great degree. What we agreed upon was that the deputy Minister and the two CEOs from both Inuvik and Baffin would get together to identify and work out a work plan with some time lines on some of the things that would be required to facilitate getting the projects back on track.

It is my understanding, particularly with the Inuvik hospital replacement project that the Inuvik board has now gone to the stage of awarding a contract for the operational and functional programming review of that facility. I cannot say definitively at what stage that group is working. It is my understanding that the contract has been awarded. There is a plan to put together, as I indicated earlier, the work plan for both the projects. I have not had a chance to speak directly about that issue with my deputy minister yet and I know there was some difficulty between the two CEOs of the boards and the deputy minister setting aside a time to get that process under way, but I will check into that and I expect that it will happen shortly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ng. Oral questions, Mr. Picco.

Thank you. The honourable Minister, Minister Kakfwi.

Mr. Speaker, there was an agreement made a couple of months ago between the federal government and the Government of the United States for a sum of $1 million in U.S. dollars that would constitute a contribution that the Americans would make over a period of years to a certain account that is set aside for payments of sale of military equipment, in return for being absolved, I suppose, by the federal government of Canada for any responsibility in regard to the clean up of the military sites established by the Americans in the Arctic in the early '50s. It is my understanding that the agreement is signed, it is final and there is little recourse for us to try to seek change at this time. That does not prevent the Government of the Northwest Territories from holding the federal government responsible, as it is still responsible for these military sites, for the clean up of these military sites and we will continue to engage in whatever discussions are necessary to ensure they are cleaned up in an orderly and an acceptable manner. Thank you.

Thank you. Supplementary, Mr. Picco.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that is indeed very disappointing. I do not use my words loosely by saying shocking that the federal government and the United States government came to this agreement a couple of months ago and it has absolved, basically, any type of monetary retribution from the American government in this clean up that could be in the hundreds of millions of dollars. My question now, I guess, to the Minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development for the Government of the Northwest Territories is that most of these sites are in the jurisdiction of the Northwest Territories. Was this government involved in the negotiations between the federal government and the American government on the monies for the clean up? Were we consulted in any way, was the Minister privy to this type of discussion? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. The honourable Minister, Mr. Kakfwi.

Mr. Speaker, the military sites were spread out across the country, 21 of those military sites are located in the Northwest Territories, mostly as part of what they call the DEW line sites, the Distance Early Warning system. There was no notification to this government of the discussions that were taking place. There was no consultation about the position that should be taken, no request for this government to provide its views or its position in regards to how this issue should be handled. We received it the same as everybody else across the country as a news broadcast on CBC television and an article in The Globe and Mail. Thank you.

Thank you. Second supplementary. Mr. Picco.

Mr. Speaker, I would urge that this government and the Minister in the strongest diplomatic language that is

available to him make it known to the federal government this jurisdiction of the Northwest Territories, our disgust with these arrangements having been made without our consultation. I would ask now in my supplementary question to the Minister. Has his department, his officials and himself contacted our federal officials to discuss these developments and will there be a meeting to look at the developments that have occurred over the past two months? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. The honourable Minister, Mr. Kakfwi.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the Department of Defence had applied to the Department of Environment asking to be exempt from an agreement that was negotiated, we believe very much on political terms earlier, that said any materials that contain PCBs more than 50 parts per million shall not be disposed of specifically in landfill sites. The PCBs as we know them contained in some of the materials and structures of the DEW line sites contain at least 45,000 parts per million. After the Department of Defence and the Department of Environment had forced and hardlined this need for a very stringent standard to be accepted by all provinces and territories, it found itself being lobbied by one of its own departments for exemption. Without speaking to the merits of it, that alone brought a lot of credibility problems to the way it was resolved, particularly because now we find that our scientific evidence that says in fact irregardless of the level PCBs contained in these materials, these materials are in fact locked into the paints and the materials that contain them. So for scientific purposes there is no merit in suggesting that they would be endangering the environment by being disposed of in landfill sites. But there seems to be a need at least to review these agreements that were made which we objected to at the time in order to deal adequately with the options that are available to us on how to clean up these military sites. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Kakfwi. Final supplementary, Mr. Picco.

Mr. Picco...Mr. Speaker,

-- Applause/Laughter

If I could continue, Mr. Speaker.

Yes, we need order here so the Honourable Mr. Picco could continue.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if this was Three Mile Island or any other place, you would have a tremendous outcry. The 27 sites that Mr. Kakfwi talked about earlier, one of the issues was, for example, taking the sites down and shipping out the wood and boards and DND wanted to be able to bury it. That is only one instance in this environmental clean up. For example, in Iqaluit in upper base we had to remove barrels and barrels of contaminated soil from the site itself. Resolution Island is one of the most infected site in the Northwest Territories. So my supplementary question again and it has not been answered yet is to the Minister, has the Minister scheduled meetings with the federal environmental people, with the federal Minister to find out exactly what is going to happen here to try to get some money? Are we going to use strong diplomatic language to the federal department to say that the deal signed with the federal government and the American government is unacceptable, Mr. Speaker, unacceptable that a territory like ourselves has not been consulted when 27 of these sites are located here for the sake of military credits for the American government so we can buy military hardware? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Picco. Mr. Kakfwi.