Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I believe that the CEOs and the working group had a conference call last week, specific to some time lines. I believe the plans are now to try to get, through the NWT Health Care Association, the possibility of a workshop with the CEOs and the working group trying to put together and finalize a proposal or a plan to try to implement breast cancer screening services, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Oral questions. Final supplementary, Mr. Ootes.

Mr. Ng.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that was the one announced last fall in respect to the answer I had to the honourable Member for Inuvik for some of the strategic planning initiatives that we planned to provide some dollars accessible to boards throughout the Northwest Territories to try to focus on some major areas, such as mental health, public health, healthy children, supported living and human resources in those four or five specific areas, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you. Oral questions. Mr. Picco.

The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Ng.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in light of some of the recent publicity surrounding the demographics of the Northwest Territories, particularly the high birth rates; I have already directed the department to put together a Minister's statement in respect to the birth rate issue and the family planning initiatives this government has undertaken. That statement, unfortunately, is not ready yet so in order to provide a detailed response on that issue, I will take the question as notice. Thank you.

The question is taken as notice. Oral questions. Mr. Ningark.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was inclined to direct my question to the Premier since my question relates to the government's overall operations, something to do with NAV Canada, talking about new user fees to come into effect within 12 months. We all know, this is going to have a subsequent impact, Mr. Speaker, on the air travellers in the NWT, especially in the Nunavut area. I will direct my question to the Minister of Transportation, who is the related Minister in this case. When we travel within the Nunavut area for medical, education, court travel, et cetera; we travel mainly by air. We do not have any highways in the Nunavut area. My question to the Minister of Transportation is, what are we doing in this case to ensure that the northern travellers are not negatively impacted? Are we trying to slow down the process? Have we communicated with the federal government on behalf of the residents of Nunavut and the Western Territory? Thank you.

The Minister of Transportation, Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in regard to NAV Canada's introduction of new air navigation fees, which they first announced last summer, I believe, we, as the Department of Transportation started communicating with all the stakeholders in the north and tried to keep yourselves, the honourable Members of the Legislative Assembly informed. We talked to the air carriers that are operating in the Northwest Territories as well as the federal government, the Minister of Transportation, the Honourable David Collenette, and we raised our concerns that any changes that were anticipated by NAV Canada are going to have a big effect on all of us because they are talking about increasing the rates quite substantially. The initial response by NAV Canada is that it is an overall Canada-wide change that they are implementing throughout the whole country, and we in the Northwest Territories make up a small percentage of the total percentage of the whole country. They have indicated that they overlooked us when they were making their original plan. The position that we have taken is they should have consulted with us a lot more and taken into consideration the northern realities of high costs already. They have not done that. So, there are two phases to their new plan.

First, is that they are going to introduce it April 1st of this year for the larger aircraft, then starting in the fall, on November 1st,

will be the second part of their plan. In the meantime we have been consulting with them quite a bit. In December their president of NAV Canada, Mr. Crichton, was in the north and myself and some of the MLAs had an opportunity to meet with him and express our concerns on the increases in the fee structure. As a result, he is committed to consult with us and work with us closely. However, the decision has already been made and the changes to the air navigation fees have already been signed off by the federal Minister, the Honourable David Collenette, and this new fee structure changes will be instituted in the next three months or so. In the meantime they are also going to be reducing their air transportation tax which is currently applied to air transportation in the north and that will maybe offset the increases in the air navigation fees a bit. There is going to be some increase in the north. Thank you.

Thank you. Oral questions. Supplementary, Mr. Ningark.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Supplementary to the honourable Minister. Did the honourable Minister, during his communication with the officials of the federal government, transportation in this case, indicate the unique position we are in, in the north? He implied that it costs more to live up here, but also that we cover a vast area and a population much smaller than the other jurisdictions in order to go from one area to the next - so we have to cover a lot of land to travel. I wonder if the honourable Minister had indicated the uniqueness of the north. Thank you.

Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yes, myself, along with my officials in the Department of

Transportation, we argued the case that the honourable Member has mentioned here, that we are indeed unique from the rest of southern Canada and the distances that we cover and the high usage of aircraft in the High Arctic and in the Nunavut communities. So yes, we have used the information that the honourable Member is stating here in our arguments to try to convince the NAV Canada Corporation that they should look at us differently than they do in southern Canada. Thank you.

Thank you. Oral questions. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you. Oral questions. Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Health and Social Services on the breast

cancer screening. In the Minister's statement, he had indicated that boards in the South Slave have been advised that it may be possible to share mobile mammography services with Alberta. I was wondering if it might be wise to implement a mobile service throughout the Northwest Territories so that people do not only have to make good usage of their travel to Yellowknife in order to get these types of services? Thank you.

The Minister of Health and Social Services. Mr. Ng.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is an issue that I asked about as well. The problem is, Mr. Speaker, that this mobile unit is in fact a permanent unit that is mounted in a van and with the unit is a team that supports it. A radiologist and a technician go around with the unit as they provide the mammography screening. So it is basically a unit that Alberta health uses for their northern part of the province and they access it of course, by road. It is not practical in that respect to look at that type of a unit for the whole territories, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you. Question period is over. Item 7, written questions. Item 8, returns to written questions. Item 9, replies to opening address. We will take a 15 minute break.

--Break