General comments? Detail: Executive, operations and maintenance, special warrants, not previously authorized, Executive offices, Minister's office, $73,000.

Cabinet Secretariat, special warrant, $189,250. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The special warrant used in this situation was for the legal costs to do with the electoral boundaries. It was an ongoing process, so could the Minister inform me as to why, in this particular case, it comes under special warrant? Thank you.

The Minister of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, this particular warrant was not really an ongoing process. It is a situation in which there was an appeal of a court decision.

General comments. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can the Minister explain further? I guess in my mind it took up a fair bit of time in the previous Assembly, so it was not a new issue, like a forest fire all of a sudden raging out of control. Thank you.

The Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Handley.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, it was very difficult to predict whether or not there was going to be an appeal. Also, there was a fair bit of debate on the responsibility of the GNWT in supporting this issue. It was controversial at the time.

General comments. We are on page 5, Cabinet Secretariat, special warrant, $189,250.

We are on page 6, Executive, operations and maintenance, labor relations and corporate services, special warrant, $457,000.

Thank you. Budget evaluation, not previously authorized, $150,000. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In this particular situation, we are changing to a new accounting system. I guess as a government we are being forced to change over by the public sector accounting board. But we have known for a couple of years that this was a direction governments were going in. Why would this not have been put into the planning process? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, this issue is one that we did not become aware of until after the main estimates were done for the current fiscal year. Following that, even after we knew we were going to be moving in this direction, we still needed time to figure out what it was we were going to do and how we were going to do it. This was too late for the main estimates for 1999-2000.

In budgeting and evaluation, $150,000, not previously authorized. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Although it was too late to make it for this budget cycle, has the staff not been aware of this for almost two years? Thank you.

Mr. Minister.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I think the staff were aware two years ago or so, but it was not clear as to how it was going to be handled, or what the recommendations were going to be. That decision only came about in the last year.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am wondering if the Minister could advise whether this $150,000 would be an ongoing human resources cost to administer a new system, or is this a one-time expenditure to basically set something up? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.