Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is $178,000 for a Minister, executive assistant and an executive secretary. In this supplementary appropriation, under Ministers' offices, we have $151,500. This is one third of the budget. This number does not compute, if we are just going to do a comparison on offices, unless I am misinterpreting the numbers here.

If this is one-third of the budget, we are calling for $151,500. We are looking at $450,000 and change. But, in fact, what you just repeated to me and I need some more clarification on this, $178,000 for a Minister, executive assistant and an executive secretary.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The figures to use for comparisons, if you want, is the $76,500, that was already referred to as a supplementary requirement for the period of time we have.

Then you have to compare that to the $281,800 for the costs for the additional Minister. The other information that is not included in the additional Minister, include adding an executive assistant and secretary for the Minister responsible for Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development. That is the other $75,000.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could the Minister give me a better understanding of what the home travel amount is? I thought I heard you say $74,000, but could you elaborate more on this executive travel or home travel, compared to say a Minister traveling on Ministerial business? Are those two separate costs? Could you give me an idea of what this home travel is? How much is the amount?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The amount I quoted for home travel is $46,000, and that is the entitlement in accordance with the guidelines for Ministers' travel to home and back. I do not have the guidelines with me, but this is done by the entitlements. Thank you.

What is the difference between this amount for the Executive and the amount for a Minister of a department. Are those two amounts of money separate?

Mr. Chairman, yes, these are different because what is in the departments is for the departments' purposes. This amount here is for Ministerial home travel, which is for the Ministers' themselves, in accordance with the guidelines. They are two separate items. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can the Minister tell me if this $46,000 is the total for the Executive? How many positions are we talking about?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The amount I am quoting is for the one Minister. Of course, it varies depending on where the Minister is from.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can the Minister give me the total of the home travel budget for the Executive?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do not have that with us now. It is something we could provide. We do not have it today.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the other matter and the whole question of using supplementaries, on the interim, I know there is a reason for them. But I think we should try to follow cases that avoid the use of supplementaries or special warrants. We have not had the opportunity to go through the business planning process yet for the 14th Assembly.

I think that whenever possible, we should make sure the dollars are allocated within the business plans, and try to use the special warrants for the appropriations to allocate the money.

In the 13th Assembly, we tried to put some controls in place for Cabinet's expenditures, particularly the misuse of special warrants. I think the direction we should take with the 14th Assembly in all cases is we should try to use the business planning process first, and use the warrants strictly on an emergency basis.

I would like to ask the Minister, what is he putting in place to ensure there is no misuse by departments? In particular, departments trying to use this process rather than having to go through the main estimates planning process so we know what they hold. If a cost to a department is going to be for the whole year, they should not try to sneak it in by using special warrants.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I agree with the Member that we should not use supplementaries where they are not necessary. When the 1999-2000 budgets were prepared, there was no way of predicting we were going to have seven Ministers. So in this case, this was the only way of doing it.

In terms of what we are doing to reduce the use of supplementaries and special warrants, I can assure the Member we will take every step we can to include everything we can possibly estimate in the main estimates. I think that as a sign of what we are doing, we have already included in the interim appropriations items that the accountability and oversight committee recommended we put into the estimates, even though it would have to be an area where they needed. I think that collective bargaining was a good example.

We are going to keep moving in that direction and get everything we can into the main estimates. Thank you.