Mr. Speaker, nothing has changed from previous years. We only approve a budget on an annual basis. That includes both operations and capital. We do a plan, a five-year plan that is based on input from communities, from departments and so on. That plan says "Here is what we plan to do." That is different from saying "Here is what we are absolutely committed to doing."

The 2004 projects will not be voted until the budget for 2004. That is the same way it has been done for as long as I know in this government. Thank you.

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

Thank you. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that is a bit of a hypothetical question but on the other hand, maybe it is not. I do not have the rating system with me right now and that is an exercise our deputies would look at. I would expect that arenas could be argued to be of a higher rating than would a campground, but again I do not know which projects we are talking about so I have to deal with it a bit in the abstract. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, you have a choice. You can answer, not answer or take it as notice.

Mr. Speaker, I will attempt to answer, I do not know if I can answer to the Member's satisfaction, but we will definitely consider that. If a community wants to have an arena and puts forward their case and they would prefer having an arena than to having -- speaking a bit hypothetically -- a campground in their community or in their area, then certainly we would look at it.

The way the capital planning process is set up, communities tell us what their priorities are, what their needs are as they see them. We take that into consideration and build it into a capital plan. Then we sit down and say okay, which things are most urgent in terms of the government's mandate and the government's obligations? It may very well be an arena.

We have, as we have explained to Members, as a last final filter, the review of main estimates here that looks at what are the considerations? What are the political needs? What are the economic needs? What are all of our needs? To figure out what do we need here?

Members get an opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to review the capital plan, the business planning stage, which we are doing right now. They will also have an opportunity to review it again when we get into main estimates. Every Member has a right to go to a Minister and say, "This is what I think I need for the communities in my area." Those are all taken into consideration.

Briefly, to answer Mr. Lafferty's question, yes, we will consider whatever Members want to bring to us. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, our capital plan is not set up by ridings or constituencies. Our capital plan is developed with the departments. We will break it down by community. We will break it down by region. If there is a greater need for a project in one community than there is for some other project somewhere else, then yes, we would consider taking a campground, to use Mr. Lafferty's example, from here and using the money to do something else over there.

That is very possible with Members' advice and if the community can justify it, as Mr. Lafferty asked. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 6, oral questions. Item 7, written questions. Item 8, returns to written questions. Item 9, replies to opening address. Item 10, petitions. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, on behalf of Premier Kakfwi, I would like to present a petition dealing with proposed amendments to the Wildlife Act. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. Item 10, petitions. Item 11, reports of standing and special committees. The honourable Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to present the Report of the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures on Modernizing our Electoral System: The Report of the Chief Electoral Officer on the Election of the 14th Legislative Assembly of the Northwest Territories, 1999.

Subsection 164(1)(e) of the Elections Act provides that the Chief Electoral Officer, the CEO, may make recommendations to the Legislative Assembly on any matter that would assist with improving the administration of future elections. If in the opinion of the CEO it may be desirable for the better administration of elections to make amendments to election laws, he may recommend such amendments through a report to the Legislative Assembly.

The report of the CEO was tabled in the Legislative Assembly in July, 2000. On October 9, 2001, the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures conducted a public review with the Chief Electoral Officer. Written submissions were solicited from NWT residents throughout the summer. Two written submissions were received by the committee and are included as appendix 1 in the committee's report. The committee would like to thank David Hamilton, the Chief Electoral Officer, and Glen McLean, the Deputy Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Northwest Territories, for appearing before the committee to discuss the recommendations in the report.

The Chief Electoral Officer made a number of specific recommendations for change to the current electoral system. The committee's responses to the CEO's recommendations and the committee's recommendations to the Legislative Assembly are presented in this report.

Subsection 29(5) of the Elections Act provides that a person does not lose his or her residence by leaving his or her home or dwelling for a temporary purpose. The act does not define what a temporary purpose is or the length of a temporary absence. During the 1999 general election, a number of instances arose dealing with electors being temporarily absent from their home or residence and whether they were eligible to vote in a specific electoral district.

The Chief Electoral Officer recommended that the Elections Act be amended to prescribe the purpose and length of time for which an elector may claim a temporary absence from his or her electoral district.

The Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures agreed that the purpose and length of time for which an elector may claim a temporary absence should be defined. However, in the absence of any definition of "ordinarily resident", members were reluctant to recommend a prescribed time limit on temporary absences. The Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures will be offering no recommendation at this time and will be seeking legal advice on setting time limits on temporary absences.

Residency is one of the fundamental aspects in determining whether a person is eligible to vote in an election and in what electoral district that person is able to cast their ballot. All eligible electors must vote in the electoral district where they reside, except for incumbents and their families.

Under our current legislation, incumbents choose where they want their residency for electoral purposes. The CEO believes that this practice currently gives current sitting Members an advantage over other candidates and provides them with an option not open to any other elector and that this practice should be discontinued.

The Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures is in agreement with the CEO.

Presently, enumeration is conducted through the appointment of enumerators who go door to door to record the names of those persons who are eligible electors. The enumeration is carried out over a nine-day period and employs approximately 100 enumerators. The cost to conduct enumeration is estimated at over $35,000.

A number of jurisdictions including, Canada, Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Ontario and Quebec, have established a permanent list of electors. These jurisdictions use a number of ways to update their list of electors including, when required by their respective Elections Acts, a door-to-door enumeration. Manitoba, Nova Scotia, PEI, Nunavut, Saskatchewan, Yukon and the Northwest Territories depend solely on the door-to-door method to produce a list of electors.

The Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures notes that significant opportunities for savings could be realized with the development of a permanent list of electors. It is also noted that information contained in the permanent list of electors, with appropriate privacy safeguards, could be shared with municipal and aboriginal governments.

Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures recommends that Elections NWT develop a permanent list of eligible electors with appropriate privacy safeguards.

The office of the Chief Electoral Officer used a modified version of Elections Canada's automated preliminary list of electors program to create an NWT preliminary list of electors, statement of changes and additions and the final list of electors. The capital system is not Y2K compliant and needs to be replaced. Elections Canada has developed a new automated system, but it would require extensive modifications to meet the needs of Elections NWT. Discussions with the CEO indicate that the enumeration system used by Alberta could be adapted to meet the needs of Elections NWT.

Mr. Speaker, the Standing Committee on Rules and Procedures recommends that Elections NWT develop an automated enumeration data entry and retrieval system.