So, Mr. Chairman, this is a one-time allotment. The work will be concluded within this current fiscal year and this will not be something that will be extended? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, yes, that is the plan. I would not want to say with absolute certainty that it will be done in February. There could be some slippage, but it is a one-time exercise aimed at building consensus and the intention is to complete it by February. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Braden.

Mr. Chairman, I think somewhat related to that issue of time are the other items that are listed in here. I know we have not got to detail on some of these other projects yet but we have mentioned the hydro project, continuing funding to aboriginal governments, the establishment of the Energy Secretariat. In all, under this department, Mr. Chairman, the supplementary requests, by my addition, $3.3 million. That is a tremendous amount of work and consultation in a relatively short period of time. I would venture to say that it also involves the time and the attention of a relatively few number of people, as a lot of them are fairly high level consultations.

I guess I question the viability of dedicating this amount of money within the next five months. Is it really realistic this can all be spent and put to good use? Or are some of these numbers, some of these projects perhaps overblown, the expectations are just too high for what can really be achieved in this short period of time?

To bring this down to a question, Mr. Chairman, could the Minister give us a snapshot under each of these specific areas here, the Energy Secretariat, the hydro unit, the aboriginal initiatives -- can these all be expended in this period of time or are there still a lot of things out there that still need to be designed? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, no. We believe that it is doable to achieve this before the end of the current fiscal year or within the time frames that have been set for each of the exercises. There could be some slippage in some of them but we do not believe that has to be great.

A lot of these have quite a bit of the work done already. For example, the Energy Secretariat has been staffed for some months now. The same with the hydro unit. A lot of work was done early in the spring and early summer, so a lot of that has already been achieved. The same with the work on the Social Agenda, some of that has been done.

Mr. Chairman, I might take this opportunity to just answer a question that was asked earlier on the money for the Social Agenda Working Group. The question essentially was whether any of the $250,000 would be use to pay participation costs of the Association of Municipalities. The answer of that is that the participating costs for the Association of Municipalities will be covered by the Executive, the same as the support that is given to aboriginal groups and other NGOs, so yes, the Association of Municipalities is eligible for participation costs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under the $550,000 requested to provide contribution to the aboriginal governments in order for them to participate, there is an allotment suggested of $100,000 for the Northwest Territories Economic Development Advisory Forum. I would like to ask the Minister, what is the status of the creation or the formation of that group? Is it ready to go to work? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, the Aboriginal Summit has done some work in pulling together a terms of reference for the Economic Development Advisory Forum. There recently was a call for nominations that closed a week before last, I believe. It was a call by the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. I expect that within a couple of weeks, we will see the Economic Development Advisory Forum established. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. We will go to Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Earlier when I was asking the Minister about the difference between consultation and consensus building -- this is under the $600,000 for the Energy Secretariat -- the Minister said that there would be some very specific tasks that might be considered in consensus building. I was wondering if we could get a bit of an idea, can we get some sense of what some of those specific tasks might be?

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, some of the consensus focus groups that would be established under the consensus building will include, and I do not know that these are all finalized yet, but these are the ones that are being contemplated: one on hydroelectricity, one on wind, one on solar, one on industry use, one on biomass, another one on conservation practices and another one on regulation and policies. That was the original list that was drawn up.

Whether that is still the one that is being used -- I notice that there are six there. I know that we already have one on hydroelectricity so I would assume that would not be included in the seven that I just mentioned. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. How is the membership of these focus groups being established? Do we have any idea yet who will be involved in selecting the members or who will be among the members?

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman I do not know exactly how or if it has been determined, how the focus groups will be structured and who would be invited to participate. I am assuming that the staff at the Energy Secretariat would be given advice on the selection of the membership.

There is one focus group on wind energy, as an example. That one will include the Energy Secretariat staff themselves, a representation from Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, someone from the Power Corporation, someone from ARCAN and then for this particular one for February, 2002, representation from the communities in the Beaufort region as well as the Inuvialuit Development Corporation.

Each one of them will be different, but I think that the intention by the Energy Secretariat is to select representatives who either have an interest in it or are in a situation where they would be able to provide input or benefit for the meetings. There is a different makeup on the different focus groups. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. The Chair is going to steal a couple of seconds of your time, Mr. Dent, and recognize Dave and Kathy Purchase in the gallery. Welcome to the Legislature.

-- Applause

Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Is the intent then to have a broad cross-section of society or is it to look for people with expertise in these areas and try and take the leadership role in getting the ideas out to the public? What exactly is the purpose of the focus groups?

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Handley.

The focus groups are meant to help define a mandate and outline and identifying coordination and other policy development issues around each of the focus areas. There will be a level of expertise that is required and again, it differs depending on the topic of the focus group.

As I understand it, it is meant to have some level of expertise that can provide the government and Energy Secretariat with direction. It is not an educative function or purpose.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Dent.