Detail of work performed on behalf of others, total department, $9,101,000. Agreed?

Revenues, recoveries and transfer payments, information item. Agreed?

Back to page 9-7, department summary, operation expense, total operation expense, $183,354,000. Agreed?

Capital acquisitions on page 13. Capital acquisition plan, advanced education careers, total advanced education careers, $1,598,000. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a question for the Minister with regard to the college HEO program equipment replacement. I notice as I looked at this line, there is a two-year gap. They have $200,000, $485,000 next year. The concern I have, Mr. Chairman, is that for a number of years prior when we were going through the cost reductions and deficit reductions, the capital replacement for heavy equipment was sacrificed. Like many of the other capital items in the government, we are building up a tremendous deficit here. The need to replace heavy equipment is not being maintained and the cost of heavy equipment is very high. I would like to ask the Minister about the gap of two years in 2003-2004, 2004-2005, considering how far we are falling behind in trying to maintain an even remotely modern fleet of heavy equipment to train Northerners on. Thank you.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, the replacement of equipment at the Thebacha Campus of Aurora College is a particularly challenging one because of the tremendous cost of some of the equipment, Mr. Chairman. We are currently reviewing this particular area with the college. We do not have any ready answers to it yet, but because of the high cost of equipment, we looked at several possibilities.

One was to lease some of the equipment. That turned out to be extremely expensive and not an option we felt we could pursue. The other option is for us to start working with some of the large corporations to see if we can work out a methodology by which we can access equipment.

Firstly, we are working with the college to see how we can approach this particular area, because it is of concern to us. We know that the equipment is aging. In some cases it is out of date because of the modern equipment that is coming out. Mostly, the equipment today has technology attached to the operational style of equipment.

Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could the Minister indicate when he anticipates they will have a clearer plan of how they intend to address this? Thank you.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, the work has been ongoing for a number of months now, and we expect that by the spring, several months into the new fiscal year, in all likelihood is when we can report back on this, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. We are on the capital acquisition plan, total advanced education and careers, $1,598,000. Agreed?

Page 14, education and culture, total education and culture, $9,886,000. Mr. Delorey.

I wanted to ask a question regarding the Princess Alexandra School renovations and addition. This project has been underway for a while. There has been a lot of talk by the people in Hay River that the renovation is barely meeting the needs of Hay River in the education end of it.

They have been really struggling to try and get a second gym for Hay River to meet the needs of the students there. Hay River only has one full-sized gym. They have been really struggling trying to get this, even looking at raising their own funds to do it.

With the amount of extra money that has been put in education with this new budget coming into place, why would the department not have been able to find a few extra dollars to be able to allow Hay River to get in a second full-sized gym while the project was going on? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

The Minister responsible for Education, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our officials have been working with the DEA and town officials on the Princess Alexandra School project. That has been ongoing since last fall. There were some issues with regard to the school. Several weeks ago, our people, along with representatives from Public Works and Services, who are the project managers on this, attended a meeting to discuss some of the deficiencies as they were seen by the school officials and DEA officials. The meeting resulted in a discussion in those particular areas.

At that point, some discussion took place on the gymnasium. It turned out that the discussion resulted in the identification that in order to expand the present gymnasium, it would incur a cost of $1.6 million. I had advised the DEA at a time when I met with the MLAs and the representatives from the DEA, as well as the mayor, that we did not have that funding allocated to increase the budget, Mr. Chairman. The challenge here is to try and find the extra money for an expanded gymnasium. We have identified the $6,158,000 for the project. There is a challenge there of trying to find the extra money on this, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Hay River seems to be have been singled out by the department as being watched very closely on this project to make sure they do not go over budget on it, as a lot of the projects have gone over budget in the past. Hay River is having a hard time trying to fit in their needs under the $6 million. A second gym or a second full-size gym for Hay River would go a long way towards addressing the needs. Is there any chance that the department is looking at this within the near future of finding extra dollars that might allow Hay River to get a second full-size gym? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would just remind Members, could we have some order in the House? It is awfully hard to hear the person speaking. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The approach that we take to schools is similar in all communities with regard to design and allocation of funding and so forth. I should remind Members that I am not there to short-change Hay River, nor am I there to short-change any other community, Mr. Chairman.

The facts of the matter are that I am allocated a capital budget. I had to take the drastic steps last year of cancelling a school in Holman Island because it came in one million and some dollars over budget. I had the unfortunate task of going to the community and informing the community of that. It is just the reality we have to live within, Mr. Chairman. We do our best to accommodate, but I cannot draw money from areas that would sacrifice other areas. Thank you.