Thank you, Mr. Minister. Final supplementary, Mr. Delorey.

Mr. Speaker, I am very encouraged by the Minister's remarks. Given the nature of the dangerous work these firefighters perform and the somewhat transient nature of our population, I believe that anything our government can do to encourage men and women to join our fire departments and to remain in their service would go a long way to retain firefighters.

Would the Minister also indicate whether he would be willing to institute separate and distinguished licence plates for our firefighters, as is done in other jurisdictions? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Delorey. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, in the context of volunteerism, I feel that it is incumbent upon myself to lead in that direction so that they get further recognition than just the appreciation. I am prepared to consider that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for the North Slave, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, just to advise the Member, very clearly and succinctly, the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs is a funding agency. We then hand over the work to another department to do the design. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I find this question difficult to answer. I am not prepared to comment on the actual question itself.

Thank you, Mr. Allen. It does border on an opinion and Ministers should not have to express an opinion. A more factual question would be to the point. Supplementary, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am prepared to answer in the context that with the limited budget that the department has, we had allocated $300,000 to the actual project. We had asked the community if they would supplement that by an additional $75,000. They advised us, through our communication, that they were not prepared to, thus forcing us to re-evaluate the cost of the Bay Island Bridge. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Final supplementary, Mr. Lafferty.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you know, each community has a number of projects on the go at any one time, so we felt that with the accumulation of a number of projects for the community, we could not reallocate additional monies to that specific project. So we were relying on the community to assist us through additional funding. That did not occur so we were left with the only option we had, which was to reconstruct a one-lane bridge. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question at this time would be directed to the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment and it is in the area of student financial assistance.

Mr. Speaker, it has been an area that has drawn much attention over a number of years from a lot of communities, as well as mine. It has been brought to my attention that there are further concerns in the area of timing of payments or notifying students if they in fact did qualify or not. At times, students end up in a jurisdiction out of territory, enrolling in school, finding out at that point that they did not qualify. In some cases, they are told at that point when they are down there that they will not be getting their first payment or cheque for another 10 days or two weeks.

I would like to know from the Minister of Education if there is a guideline or a standard put in place as to when payments are first issued. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for the question, Mr. Roland. Over the past year, we have certainly addressed many areas of administrative matters that were of concern. We feel we have made good progress in most areas. Sometimes there is not a complete understanding on the part of the students of the rules and regulations, which is quite understandable. Some students are new to the process and so forth.

Dealing with the specific question that the Member has asked, do we have some guidelines in place with respect to payment? Yes, we do. For the first payment of each semester, we require up to ten working days to issue payment because in most cases, the last document that comes in is the enrolment form. Without that, as I am sure the Member can appreciate, we cannot issue payment. We have to have evidence of enrolment acceptance. There may also sometimes be other documents in the fall. For instance, previous academic records and so forth. I do believe we have made good progress in that area though, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.