Thank you. There is a motion to report progress. However, I do not have a quorum. I will ring the bell. The Chair recognizes a quorum. There is a motion to report progress. It is not debatable. All those in favour? All those opposed? The motion is defeated. We are on general comments. We are dealing with Public Works and Services and Mr. Antoine is ready to receive general comments. Are there any general comments? Mr. Roland.

Thank you. I hope our Minister and his staff will be keeping notes because the general procedure we do in the general comments is after everyone has made a general comment, we allow the witnesses to reply in the end. At this point I will not recognize the Minister or any of the witnesses until everyone who wanted to speak has spoken. I have on the list Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I understand that this is the final budget that our deputy minister in this area will be doing as he will be leaving the government after a long period of service. I wanted to indicate the appreciation I know a lot of us feel for Mr. Lovely's long employment.

--Applause

Mr. Chairman, I know he has been around a long time. I first met him, I believe it was '72 or '70, thereabouts, when we were with the Arctic Winter Games Volleyball Team. It seems like a long time ago. He has been with the government ever since. I would like to wish him all the best in his future endeavours and once again, I would just like to thank him for all the service that he has put in.

Mr. Chairman, one of the things that I wanted to comment on is the community maintenance agreements. The Minister had indicated that there are ten maintenance agreements operational in communities and there are discussions in 19 more. Are these maintenance agreements, such as community empowerment, where communities are taking over the implementation of these services? Also, what I wanted to know is if there is any additional training involved to ensure that the process works smoothly after the take over? I noticed that the department is working with MACA to ensure this, but I was wondering if we could get some further explanation on how this is being done? Thank you.

Thank you. Members, this is your last opportunity to question the Minister. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The previous Member, as well, mentioned the maintenance agreements that I made reference to. It is an interim step toward community empowerment and it is a community empowerment initiative. Through these transfers the responsibility for maintaining buildings and works in a community is turned over, transferred over to community governments. The facility ownership is not transferred, just maintaining the buildings and the works. The funding is provided by Municipal and Community Affairs and is transferred from Public Works and Services through MACA. These community governments then fund, and are responsible for such things as, maintenance of schools, health centres and other facilities in their communities. Through these agreements that are now operational, we have: Cape Dorset, Tuktoyaktuk, Holman, Pelly Bay, Fort Resolution, Pangnirtung, Baker Lake, Cambridge Bay, Taloyoak and the Hay River Reserve First Nation. For the other 19 agreements, we are in the draft-

agreement stage, they are: Tsiigehtchic, Repulse Bay, Arviat, Pond Inlet, Resolute Bay, Clyde River, Coral Harbour, Tulita, Chesterfield Inlet, Whale Cove, Aklavik, K'asho Gotine, Fort Resolution, Kugluktuk, Broughton Island, Deline, Sachs Harbour, Detah, Ndilo, Snare Lake, Wha Ti and Rae Lakes.

Further on, there are preliminary discussions that have been initiated now with Jean Marie River, Lutselk'e, Trout Lake, Paulatuk, Kimmirut and Sanikiluaq. Those are the community maintenance agreements I mentioned and tried to explain what they are and the training involved. Once these maintenance programs are turned over to the communities, the department goes back on a regular basis to see how they are doing and any place where there is a requirement for further training, then those are initiated.

Regarding Mr. Roland's concern about the fuel, petroleum products situation, a little bit of history, Imperial Oil submitted a proposal containing two options and one of them was for diesel and gasoline products to continue to come out of the Norman Wells refinery. The aviation products would come from Imperial Oil's refinery in Alberta, the Strathcona refinery, and delivered to Hay River. That is option one. They also included a second option, that all products coming out of the Alberta refinery outside of Edmonton, the Strathcona refinery, be delivered to Hay River. This is the option that eventually won out because of the good price. Option A, the first option from Norman Wells, included pricing for products to be sold through Imperial's agency in Inuvik, Aklavik and Norman Wells. That is the fuel that would be sold from the Norman Wells refinery.

The price regulation authority under the Proven Area Agreement of 1944, which Mr. Roland is referring to, would come into effect if Option A was chosen. However, Option B was chosen, and it did not include a proposal for Imperial's agency because the products would be coming from the south, and it is not coming from the proven area. As a result, the Proven Area Agreement with its authority to regulate price had not been in effect. As a result of that, that arrangement they had from Norman Wells to Inuvik and Aklavik as well, did not apply. Imperial Oil's Option B was selected because of the best overall value to the Government of the Northwest Territories, as well as to the NWT Power Corporation. As a result, a three-year contract was awarded to Imperial Oil in Option B and this expires at the conclusion of the 1998 re-supply season. Again, the Government of the Northwest Territories does not provide the petroleum products to the town of Inuvik. It is done through a private outlet. It does not have the ability to regulate private pricing of the petroleum products in that community. I hope this is the information that the honourable Member is looking for. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Because Mr. Erasmus was the last name on the list who wanted to speak, I allowed the honourable Minister to respond. Mr. Krutko, do you wish to make a general comment? Mr. Krutko.

Thank you. Before I allow the

Minister or the witnesses to respond or reply to general comments, I would like to ask if there are any other Members who wish to make a general comment? Mr. Ootes.

Thank you. What we do here, Mr. Ootes, do we try to follow this general rule we decided on a couple of weeks ago? We do general comments. At the end of all the general comments, the Minister will respond. I know they are taking notes. Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. We can ask a general question, but if the Minister wishes to respond at the end of these general comments that is his prerogative. Any other general comments from the floor? Mr. Minister, would you now like to respond?

Yes, I would like to respond. Mr. Krutko asked about maintenance agreements speaking about his constituency of Aklavik in regard to specifically the agreement with the water treatment area and it had to deal with a situation that did not really work out and of all the different maintenance agreements the intention is good by the department. However, we ran into certain problems and in this case the department ran into some problems with regard to Human Resources. I would like to turn this over to the deputy minister who has had hands on experience with this, Mr. Ken Lovely to maybe elaborate more on the situation.

Mr. Lovely.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In general, the terms of the community transfer agreement seem to be working out quite well. They give communities the opportunity to have some experience at managing budgets and staff, and handling responsibility for all the buildings in the community. However, in some cases, we have encountered difficulties such as the one Mr. Krutko mentioned. In spite of everybody's best efforts it just did not work out. We abided by the community's wish to turn the responsibility back to the department, but I do not think we have given up on the potential for a similar transfer for sometime in the future, if we are able to satisfy the community that the skills they need to run the water treatment plant would be available to them. Sometimes these things take a couple of tries before they are successful and it often takes quite a while for us to work with the community as they get used to the new responsibilities and acquire a bit of training. In general terms, so far we have had good experiences and communities have started to recognize that some of the advice and assistance we provide is useful. They are no longer feeling as though they need to keep us at arms length. I think it is working, generally, fairly well.

Mr. Antoine, carry on.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to the petroleum products situation in Fort McPherson, there is an existing supplier with a long-term contract with Public Works and Services and that long-term contract ends in the year 2001. There is a legal matter of looking at that and honouring that contract. There was a letter that was sent to the interested party in this regard. The department did meet with the community, and, subject to dealing with the long-term contract, perhaps having to wait until it is over, in order to honour that contract, the department is open to looking at other types of innovative and new arrangements that the Member for Mackenzie Delta mentioned. Mr. Ootes mentioned when dealing with the Yellowknife office plan, in a couple of places we would suggest the role of the deputy minister falls under the directorate. I think there was some concern about the authority of the deputy minister and some decisions. Perhaps it might be a good area to address that at that time. For the overall contracting agreement you want some clarity on what are the regulations in regard to non-competitive contract area and you are seeking clarification on the methodology. Perhaps I could turn it over, if we have time, to the deputy minister because he is eager to get into this part of the discussion. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

We have a few seconds to spare. Mr. Lovely.

Mr. Chairman, this is a very complex issue, one in which I will not necessarily deal with the questions in the exact order they were presented. There are a variety of different types of processes that are involved when we contract. We did put together a draft negotiated contract policy in response to a request from the Legislature last fall and that was forwarded to the standing committees for review. A document was circulated to Members early last year called PWS contracting methods which provided an outline of how we deal with tenders and proposals and sole source within the Government of the Northwest Territories. I should make it clear that the Department of Public Works and Services does not have the responsibility for regulating the practices of other departments in the way that they follow their contracting. We deal specifically with those areas for which we have responsibility. The rules that guide us in contracting are in the financial administration manual.

Thank you. I have to recognize the clock. It is 6:00 p.m. Mr. Minister and witnesses, you can continue with the responses tomorrow when we return to the committee of the whole. Thank you. I will rise and report progress. Thank you.

Good Evening. We are on item 20, report of committee of the whole. Mr. Ningark.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Your committee has been considering Bill 8, Appropriation Act 1998-99 and Committee Report 03-13(5) and would like to report progress with three motions being adopted. Mr. Speaker, I move that the report of committee of the whole be concurred with.