Thank you, Minister Steen. Item 6, oral questions. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister inform the House whether he would consider a highway patrol office presence in Fort Providence when the ice bridge is in operation?

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister for Transportation, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again I will pass the suggestion on to the department, but I am sure the department has been considering steps such as the Member suggested, to prevent heavier trucks than what is actually allowed for weight limits. Those types of things are being considered by the department, but I will pass the question on to the department. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Steen. Item 6, oral questions. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my Member's statement, the ice roads to the north are useless without the ice crossing in Fort Providence. Can the Minister assure the House that the engineering study presently being used to construct ice crossings at Fort Providence will be sufficient to meet the demands of an anticipated increase heavy truck traffic will bring?

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I will take that question as notice.

Thank you, Minister Steen. The question has been taken as notice. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for North Slave, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as Members of this House may know, hospital and physician services for status Indians and Inuit is a separate agreement in contract with the federal government, which is administered by this government on behalf of those individuals who qualify for services under that program.

Mr. Speaker, this is an approximately $20 million component in the money that is received by Health and Social Services from Indian and Northern Affairs Canada. Mr. Speaker, this particular agreement has been under some dispute with the federal government over the past year. The crux of the disagreement relates to the fact that the costs are increasing for these services, and as the Government of the Northwest Territories is responsible for delivering those services, Mr. Speaker, the issue is the demand on those resources.

With the demand for services, the cost of those services is escalating at about five percent per year and the federal government, up until our most recent talks with them, have refused to have an escalator in there any greater than two percent. They have capped it at two percent, and so this is an ongoing concern. It does represent almost $20 million a year. We are coming up to a March 31, 2000 deadline, Mr. Speaker, so this is why this is a very important issue to this government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Item 6, oral questions. Supplementary, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Minister for Health and Social Services, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, senior officials of both Indian and Northern Affairs and Health and Social Services have been working on this issue for quite some time without resolve. On February 2, 2000, Premier Kakfwi wrote a letter to the Honourable Robert Nault outlining this concern. Subsequent to that, the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs has responded, holding the line on the position of the federal government with response to this cap on the escalation clause in this contract.

So far, this issue remains unresolved. However, I want to assure Members and Mr. Lafferty that the government is continuing to pursue this. Unfortunately, we may be forced to resign... let me be get the right phrase in here... forced to sign this document under protest with the hope of resolving it at some time in the future. The threat is that this funding, the $16 million that is outstanding right now, will lapse if we do not sign this agreement by March 31, 2000. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. You caused a few hearts to skip a beat there. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Minister responsible for Transportation. I do not know if he is aware, but there has been another accident on the roads surrounding the City of Yellowknife. This time it was on the Ingraham Trail involving another tractor trailer.

I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if the Minister could inform the House about what he knows about the accident and confirm whether or not dangerous road conditions had anything to do with it? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for Transportation, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I received a briefing on the accident this morning. This was a single-truck accident on Highway No. 4, Kilometre 57, at approximately 4:00 a.m. on February 28, 2000, involving a driver and one passenger.

The truck was northbound and carrying a rock truck chassis. The driver pulled over too far on the side of the road, rolled over on the truck's side and lost a load. It is believed that the load shifted on the truck. The result was the driver had a cut forehead, and the passenger hurt his back. Both were taken to hospital in an ambulance.

Road conditions were slippery, and there was a curve sign that read 50 kilometres. That is all the information I have at this time, though we had our sanding equipment out, and we were sanding at 10:00 p.m. the night before on February 27, 2000. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Steen. Item 6, oral questions. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I really appreciate that the Minister was well prepared to answer this question. You would have thought that I advised him in the first place, but I did not. I wonder, Mr. Speaker, if the Minister could tell me anything he knows about the other accident that I have not yet heard anything about, which happened on Highway No. 3?

Sorry, Ms. Lee, but we have to stick to the one accident. It is a different subject, so I rule the question out of order. Item 6, oral questions. The Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the Minister responsible for Health and Social Services. I would like to thank her for opening the forum report and reading the mandate and letting us know that possibly no new money was being considered.

One of the recommendations in the report is that we increase spending on addictions treatment, and this seems to be in direct contradiction to what she had stated. I would argue that if she is not prepared to lobby for new money for health and social services, she essentially will be dusting furniture in Pompeii.

If this government continually makes addictions treatment a priority but turns around and shuts treatment centres in Inuvik and shuts treatment centres in Yellowknife, I am concerned. I wonder if the Minister can give us the status of addictions treatment in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.