Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is information on the calculations specific to Public Works and Services. It is additional to the information that has already been submitted to the committee with respect to some lease information we are about to give you. The department is requesting funding of $125,000 for the impact of the Power Corporation interim rate application on their operational power costs. That is based on actual consumption for last year in each community multiplied by the increase outlined in the Power Corporation's rate applications for the communities affected.

In addition, they are asking for $200,000 to meet increased cost to the department's lease portfolio for both power and fuel. The department, in substantiating their request, has provided a detailed list of all leases administered by Public Works and Services in Fort Smith and North Slave regions, including the base rents, O and M costs per year of projected increases. A few leases have recently come up for renewal with large increases in rent and operating expenditures related to fuel and power rate changes. For leases that have not been recently adjusted for those rate changes, estimates have been provided with respect to the lease escalation provisions that will be activated over the course of the remaining part of the year.

I would note that we did not have, at the time we did the calculations, all of the detailed lease information out of the Inuvik region, so we used some estimates based on the average lease escalation we are seeing in the rest of the Territories. So $200,000 of the $325,000 in Public Works is related to lease escalation costs associated with fuel and power rate increases that have been provided to the committee.