Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the intention of the rebate is to help those who are in the most need of help. The easiest, most efficient way of doing that is to use some sort of income threshold for a household. I realize looking at need can be very complicated, but we wanted to have a system that could be administered easily and would enable us to be able to get the help out to people as quickly as possible.

Mr. Speaker, we need to have a cut off somewhere. No matter how we do it, it seems we will have some people who feel that their income is just above that threshold and they really need to have some help. We really have to have a threshold. It was felt that this one was the most efficient one in terms of administering it and one that was the fairest to most people.

Of course I will consider alternatives. As we speak, our staff are looking at this, but I have to say that given the need to get the rebate cheques out quickly, we need to have something that is fairly efficient to administer. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Final supplementary, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I hope that the Minister follows through on that promise to have another look at this issue. I would hope that when we are comparing easy administration for this government versus fairness for our constituents, fairness will win out.

I wonder if the Minister could advise, how were the amounts of $320 per household and $150 per renter household determined?

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we took a look at the cost of fuel increases over the last year. If you take heating oil, it has increased from 41.4 cents to 57.4 cents in Yellowknife. It is different for every community, of course, but the amount of the increase for people in detached dwellings or in homes is roughly one-half of the estimated $640 increase that people would face in home heating costs on average. So on average, it is half of the average heating cost increase. In the case of apartment buildings, we had to look at it a bit differently and do an estimate based on the rental increases that have been put in place by landlords over the last winter. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This program is under the Early Childhood Program, the day care user subsidy program. Payments are made to income support and others for day care subsidies. It is unfortunate that this is occurring to students who are dependent upon this and I will check into this issue. I already started to enquire today. Once I learned of this, I made an enquiry to see what the reasons are for the delay and what the process normally is in this particular case of the day care user subsidy, Mr. Speaker.

As well, of course, we are looking at the Early Childhood Development Program. The day care area has been one of my areas of interest to ensure that we provide expedient and good service, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Ootes. Supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, one of the areas that seems to be a real concern or problem is the length of time it takes for this government to have those subsidies delivered to the students. I would like to ask the Minister, would he also consider looking at the possibility of trying to streamline this process so it could be conducted a lot smoother than it presently is?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Yes, Mr. Speaker. This definitely is an area that we need to do some work on. I want to ensure that cheques are received expediently by those who are in need of them and that we do have an efficient system in place. As I mentioned, we are looking at the Early Childhood Development Program and one area that I have taken a particular interest in is the child care area. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Ootes. Supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister make an attempt to see if it is possible to deliver the program through the Gwich'in Education and Training Group that presently delivers scholarship programs and other programs that they administer on behalf of the federal government through aboriginal programs? Since they already are an agency that deals with education programs in the community and they do serve a portion of the population of the people I represent, is that a possibility and will you consider looking at it?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Education, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We do make arrangements with various communities to deliver income support on a local basis. It is an area that we will look at to see if this can be done in this particular circumstance to see if there is the possibility of local delivery. If it is already done with the income support portion, then we can also do the same thing with the day care user subsidy program. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Ootes. Final supplementary, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With regard to this being an issue not only for Fort McPherson, but probably all the other communities in the Territories which have similar problems, I would like to ask the Minister would he consider looking closely at the request made by the students of Fort McPherson in other areas to ensure that the subsidy programs that are being delivered are being delivered in all communities, not just this one requested by Fort McPherson?

I think it is important that we find ways of taking down these barriers that are affecting the education of our students and not to deter them, or them having to drop out of school. Would he consider looking at the overall program?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes. We would look at the universality of the program, of course. As I mentioned, in a number of cases, we provide local delivery for income support and make arrangements with local organizations to be able to do that. In the case of the day care subsidy program, we will also look at that to see if we cannot apply this in a more efficient way across the Territory. I must emphasize though that I do not know whether this is an isolated case or whether this is a common problem and we would have to look at it in light of that to see if this is a more prevalent problem and that we look at some universal problem-solving on this.

Thank you, Minister Ootes. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife South, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask today again, a follow-up echoing Mr. Dent's concerns about the fuel subsidy. I would also like to weigh in with my constituent's feelings that this thing likely should be on a graduated basis and have an inverse relationship to income and that setting a cut off, wherever we set it, is going to leave some people out. I do not think that is fair. I would like to direct my questions to the Minister responsible for Housing, since it sounds like his department will be responsible for administering this.

Mr. Handley suggested that the average household fuel price went up by $640. That is home heating oil. What about those households on propane, which I believe have taken an even larger hit? Did we take a look at that and what would they be having to endure? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. The honourable Minister responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation, Mr. Allen.