Thank you, Mr. Chairman. What responsibility does the department incur to ensure that the communities do not have problems on January 1st? I know the Power Corporation is quite confident that the power will be maintained on that date, but is there any responsibility by the department for the small communities? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you. The main area that we are focusing on is to ensure that the communities are aware of the Y2K issue. We are also making sure that they have the programming and tools so that they can check their computer systems to satisfy themselves that the equipment that they have is Y2K compliant, as well as the software that is involved. We are mainly concerned with the financial information, and so on, at the municipal government level. We also have information that we make available to them so that they can properly plan and prepare themselves for the Y2K issue. As well, with our responsibilities for Emergency Measures, emergency planning, we want to ensure that the communities, at the community level, are prepared through their Emergency Measures Plans to address any eventuality. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to see the progression of the School of Community Government as there was a motion passed in this House for more training for the community people in order that they be better prepared, I suppose not only for community people but for people in general, including people in the larger centres, so that the municipalities would be better prepared to take over. Municipalities, bands, Metis locals, whatever, would be better prepared to take over programs and services through the Community Empowerment Initiatives. I suppose, in another sense, also through the self-government negotiations. A lot of people had identified at the time that the communities needed more training and it was good to see that there was movement in this area.

I wanted to comment, however, on the comments in the Standing Committee on Resource Management and Infrastructure's report that staff should be qualified for the positions prior to their hire. I think that is a laudable goal; however, there are times when you cannot get qualified people and I think that is the problem that is being tried to address, to try to ensure that there are qualified people, and that you do not have to import other people from either the south or from the larger communities, so people can actually live in the community that they were raised in without having to move to a larger centre for work. There was another comment that this training effort may be better developed, co-ordinated and implemented through ECE and Aurora College. I do not think I can agree with that, Mr. Chairman. I can see collaborating with them but, from my experience, I think it would be better for the department to maintain the control of this and work with the college and the department and also with the aboriginal and municipal leadership, but I do not think they should just turn it over. I am saying this because I have seen what happens to some programs, sometimes courses are put together just by pulling other things from other courses and using existing staff for totally new courses which are beyond the realm of expertise of the current staff and because they are on staff, they have to be used.

I do not believe that it is a good way to go, to leave it in the hands of them. I think the department has to maintain control and work in conjunction with their partners. They have to ensure that the needs that are identified are properly addressed and that if there have to be new people brought in, then bring in new people. You cannot just use the same staff that the college has on hand now for the recreation programs or whatever. I would encourage the department to continue in their current mode and also to get the buy in from the aboriginal and municipal leadership.

The Y2K compliance, I am glad to see that we are all trying to make sure that things do not grind to a halt at the end of the year and that this department is also working to ensure that we have existing firefighting capacities that are effective, the rest of that.

The current water allocation levels, Mr. Chairman, I seem to recall seeing some statistics awhile back which indicated that the communities of Detah and N'dilo were a little less than the rest of the territories. I cannot figure out why and I was wondering if perhaps if the department might have noted that and inquired as to why they were below. They were actually below the recommended level of water usage. I see here that the deputy minister reported that the current standards for trucked water on a per capita basis in the communities exceeded standards set for Yellowknife. Does that include the community of Detah and N'dilo? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With regard to the water situation, I think the question is emanating from the fact that in establishing guidelines for pipe and trucked water through the Northwest Territories, the department used the trucked water services in Yellowknife as the basis, as well as the piped water. In order to establish guidelines for the Northwest Territories, we did a study of the water that was being trucked and its utilization in Yellowknife. I should point out that the Canadian standards for water consumption is 65 litres per person per day. The survey that we undertook in the area around N'dilo, we established that the utilization rate for trucked water was 87 litres per person per day. The guideline that we used in determining the water subsidy was based on 90 litres per day. Similarly, for piped water, we again used Yellowknife as the guideline and on that basis it was determined that 225 litres per day per person was the standard that we should be using in terms of the subsidies that we provided in that area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister's statement on page four and five regarding the strength in the community fire protection service by $400,000, additional funding of $300,000 for firefighting training, I was wondering what type of training he is referring to because when firefighting training comes to mind, to me I always think of forest fire training or something like that. What capacity is the Minster referring to when that kind of money is allocated for firefighting training? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The kind of training that we are looking at is specifically to train local people to become fire trainers, so it is a training-the-trainer type of training. What we are also developing is a training plant so that we can train the firefighters in the Northwest Territories to meet national standards and that they be fully qualified. Some of the areas that we are looking at is also, we are looking at live fire training facilities and the NWT fire chiefs are meeting in Hay River this week. That is one of the areas that we are looking at.

With regard to specifics, we have identified increases to what we call MOAP and SOAP, which is Municipal Operating Assistance Programs and Sub and Operating Assistance Programs where we are providing increased funding to those programs for training at the community level. Also, we are providing funding to develop a fire training plant for the Northwest Territories. As well, we are looking at some specialized training at the territorial level. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is distributed to the communities on the same basis as the Municipal Operating Assistance Program. So, in the calculations that are made, the training is included in the core funding that is given to the municipal governments.