Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope the committee is going to meet sooner than some other committees that are

supposed to be meeting in this House. In any event, I will leave that subject, but my question, further question to this, Mr. Speaker, is the decision made that the Laing Building be retained and be refurbished and I understand with substantial sums of money, so, what is the problem with getting the Office Space Rationalization Plan before us? I would like to ask the Minister, when will I have an answer to my question, when am I going to get the Office Space Rationalization Plan? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Office Space Plan, as Mr. Ootes brings up as I stated, I have written to the committee, he is a Member of that committee, when they set a date I said I would gladly have the department and myself ready for them to do this briefing. As everybody knows, the Office Space Plan is just that, it is a plan. I believe they have the original plan in place, I believe that has been given to the committee in the past. I have looked at it and as for a decision made on any buildings and money committed to it, well, the budget has not been passed yet so there is no money in this existing year's budget for the refurbishing, as Mr. Ootes called it, for the Laing Building. That is yet to be decided as to where we go and that is one of the reasons I would like to meet with the committee on that issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hate to be contradictory, but it was announced some months ago that the Laing Building was going to be retained and in order to retain it money was going to be spent on it. Additionally, yes, it is true the Minister has promised to brief the committee on this, but I have been asking for the Office Space Rationalization Plan outside of a committee briefing. I have not yet also received the original Office Space Plan which we always requested. So, I guess my question is, of the Minister, has the Laing Building definitely been included to be retained by this government? Will the Laing Building definitely be retained by this government? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I cannot give the Member the definite answer he would like. That is an option yet that has to go through the committee stage, as well as to Cabinet. If I choose and the Cabinet supports the direction for either keeping the building or to let it go, that decision is yet to be made so I cannot tell the Member today, yes or no to his specific question. As I said earlier, I am looking for input from the committee as to where the direction goes. The original plan that was in place, which looked at the sale of the building and moving departments into other office space in Yellowknife has been put on hold because the plan that was put out and the tenders that were put out had come back to the department and have been shown not to be feasible at this present time as they were existing.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Could the Minister tell us why the Laing Building sale was not feasible? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the reasons that comes to mind when we refer specifically to the Laing Building was the results back from the tender showed that it was uneconomical to sell it for the prices that were submitted and we had to look at other options that were available to us. That is what I instructed the department to do and we have not finalized that yet. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the beginning of 1998, on request from the federal government to take the lead in developing the Protected Area Strategy, this government convened a conference in Inuvik that asked the aboriginal leaders from the western Arctic to set out a process which they would support that would have involvement from the

governments, federal, territorial as well as the aboriginal organizations, and in turn the process would allow for the involvement of stakeholders such as environmental groups and industry and members from the business community of the north. An advisory committee was established that allowed for input from the major stakeholders as well as the other groups that I have mentioned.

We have completed a Protected Area Strategy which has been approved for submission by this government on behalf of all the aboriginal organizations and the stakeholders involved to the federal government. It has been forwarded to the federal government at this time, as I said, with the full support of all the people that were involved in the process. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my information is that, aside from the South Slave Metis Tribal Council, who at the 11th hour decided because of their interpretation of certain wording to no longer support the strategy, all parties, all aboriginal organizations, including the environmental groups, the representatives of business and from industry, are in support of this strategy. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are hoping the federal government will indicate its support, hopefully with the appropriate commitment to fund this strategy as soon as possible. I will take the last part of the Member's question as notice as I am not privy to that information at this time. Thank you.