Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to commend my colleague for his continued interest in adult basic education and literacy and such. He is right that he and three of his colleagues from Yellowknife, and I did meet with the folks in Yellowknife on May 14th. There was a subsequent meeting on June 25th to follow up to the commitment made. Out of that particular meeting came the plan to coordinate a workshop that is being looked after by the North Slave Career Centre for August, at which time they are going to map out the plan for Yellowknife and where they go from here in terms of partnerships and better coordinating their resources.

On the broader issue of adult basic education there is, in fact, as we speak, a review being done and a plan being pulled together to lay out the priorities and direction and review where we have been, where we are, where we should be going as a government and a territory and how do we work with the colleges and the communities and the non-government organizations. That is being worked on. It is a working group made up of government people as well as people from non-government organizations. Thank you.

I want to thank the Minister for following up on that action. He is well aware it is an important issue for a lot of people here in Yellowknife. There are a lot of people from the communities and our community, so it directly affects all of us here because they are our community people from throughout the North. My question, Mr. Speaker, is with regard to the multi-year funding which not only applies here but in other areas, not just in the adult education area. I wonder if the Minister can address that for me, in general terms, if the government will look at multi-year funding for specifically the adult education groups that may extend further and is that under discussion? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of multi-year funding is being reviewed with schools, with all projects that are yearly funded, Healthy Children's Initiative and such, as well as adult basic education. I would like to point out to the Member that the majority or the bulk of funding for adult basic education at this juncture is funnelled through and delivered through the colleges and the learning centres in the communities and the campuses in the larger centres. The issue of non-government organizations is one that is still unresolved, but it is something that there is discussion and review on as well. It is a fundamental issue and how can we provide greater certainty to these organizations so that, in fact, they can plan more than six months or a year at a time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the course of the Minister initiating action by his officials and to look at this within concert with other organizations, does he have a time frame that he has set for his officials to provide a report or certainly to address this issue? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In fact, the work that has been done is well along, and I would suggest that within the next two months we should be complete and we should be able to show progress.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There seems to be an urgent need to address this issue and I appreciate that it will take that time. I guess my concern lies with the next step of the process. Will the Minister be then in a position to make some recommendations for the future budget for the year 2000-2001? No doubt multi-year funding and so forth will have to be taken into consideration, but possible increased funding as well. Can the Minister tell me if he will be able to initiate some action regarding the funding? Thank you.