Mr. Speaker, no.

Thank you. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. The question is directed to the honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe that the information is distributed through our centres that handle income support and the payments of fuel subsidies. It is generally distributed through mechanisms such as our offices and so forth, and upon enquiries. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. There are too many questions in there, but I will allow the Minister to respond if he chooses. The honourable Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Ootes.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The methodology of application, of course, is through one of our offices or one of our individuals who may be available in various communities, and through enquiries. The rates are set according to zones. We have three zones in the Territories. Some are on the highway zone and the others are not. We have maximum earning rates between $30,000 and $39,000 as the cutoff. Thank you

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

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The seniors' fuel subsidy rates were established in and around 1997, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Merci, Mr. Minister. Your final supplementary, Mr. Nitah.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The methodology is the same as for everyone else. The seniors do qualify for it, even if they get the seniors' fuel subsidy. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ootes. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to direct my questions again to the Minister of Finance about the rebate program. He indicated earlier that he would like me to be more specific about answers that he needs to give. I would suggest to him that we Members here spend a lot of time putting our questions and statements together, responding to our constituents. I think we deserve an answer. I think he should be advised to go and read those answers and answer to us.

If he cannot do that right now, I could think of the suggestion made by Mr. Bell on the graded allowances. How is he going to determine who is paying the bill? I made the suggestion about tax credits. All those things he said he would take into consideration, but it seems to me that he was just going to put it in his brain and just walk away and go with the program anyway, regardless of anything that is said here.

I hesitated here, Ms. Lee, because you did not ask a question until I was going to interrupt. This is your second go-around, so be more specific. We are running out of question time. Specifically ask the question. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Minister Handley. Do you have the question?

Mr. Speaker, certainly I will do my best to answer any questions that are asked of me. It was only yesterday that the Member was asking me questions and giving me recommendations as to how to improve the program. Give me a little bit of time here to put this all together, otherwise I have to just give you the information that we have from the original thinking on how this program is going to work, and I read that out to you.

As I said, you asked me to look at having a graduated scale, you have asked me to look at tax credits, you have asked me about a number of options. There are a whole bunch of things that were asked of us yesterday. I do have to sleep a little bit. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Mr. Speaker, I think it is very reasonable for me to get really upset because the answer he gave to Mr. Roland earlier is, "Oh yeah, you want to see a draft? I will make it available to you, but it is all written out and you are not going to have any say in it." So my question is, do the Members here have any say on the criteria of who is going to get this money, what defines the income, and whether or not there should be a requirement that the people who pay the bill receive the subsidy, not just based on income? This is not an income supplement. We have...

Thank you, Ms. Lee. We have three questions there. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance may answer any one. Mr. Handley.