Mr. Chairman, in terms of new positions, all three of them will be new positions. Are there new people in the positions? In Inuvik, the person who is occupying that position was transferred from elsewhere in the department, and he took a transfer from one job to another. In Norman Wells, the person taking that position came from another department. In the case of the Deh Cho area, there we have a person who has been with the department for a long time acting in that position, mainly until we know what the Deh Cho leaderships' wishes or desires are, on how we are going to fill that position.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My question is in the area of the Development Corporation and also the deal with the Fort McPherson Canvas Shop and the Aklavik Fur Shop. The Aklavik Fur Shop has been closed for some time, but the concern I have is in regard to the situation that they find themselves in. It was not a question of demand, but I think it was a question about the misuse of funds in the area of marketing, and what not, compared to the previous administration in that office.

You made reference to the Auditor General's report, but the concern I have is that because of the marketing scenarios that were put forth with the previous government, there is a lot of money spent in establishing these wholesale distribution centres. There were shops established in southern Canada at most major airports, Banff and other places around the country.

A lot of money was wasted on that initiative, in which a lot of the companies that this government owns, the Fort McPherson Canvas Shop, the Fur Shop in Aklavik, the Fur Shop in Tuktoyaktuk, have felt that. There have been layoffs and shutdowns because they were not able to develop their products, or even have a say in how they were being marketed. A lot of that stuff was sitting in warehouses and the people who were making all of the money were the people doing the distribution on the wholesale side of it.

I would like to ask the Minister exactly what has the department done to improve that, knowing we have sold off a bunch of leases that this government held in southern Canada or got out of them altogether? There was a cost associated with that. What has the Minister done to improve the operations of the companies that we own such as the canvas shop in Fort McPherson and the fur shop in Aklavik?

Mr. Chairman, following division of the Territories, we moved quickly to try to begin restructuring the Development Corporation and making some fiscal sense of what was going on there. We got out of a lot of those businesses, in fact all of the businesses in the south because they were all money-losing ventures and we did not feel that we should be spending money supporting businesses in the rest of Canada. We should be looking at what we can do in the North.

With regard to what we have done in the North or what are our plans in the North, maybe I will let Mr. Koe speak to that since he is the man in charge of restructuring this corporation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could the Minister tell us if there is any internal probes or investigations going on because of what has happened with some of the deals, especially the Fort Resolution sawmill and the overall dollars that were lost in the handling of the wholesale distribution in southern Canada? Is there any internal probes or investigations that the Minister is aware of at this time?

Mr. Chairman, other than the audits that are going on yet of what has happened in the past, there are no criminal investigations ongoing right now. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Under the activity summary, you talk about oil and gas participation and development, coordinating plans and the transfer of provincial-type responsibilities from DIAND to the Government of the Northwest Territories. What coordinated plans are you talking about? Do you have plans being developed right now of how many positions you are going to need, what type of criteria you are going to take on? Are we going to have geologists, different people in different sectors, oil and gas, drill experts, whatever? Have you gone that far?

If we take on these responsibilities, we have to understand what we are getting into. Is the government working on some sort of a preliminary or implementation plan on how much space we are going to need, how many people we are going to need, what is going to be needed if we do take over oil, gas and minerals lock, stock and barrel? What is the cost associated with it, how many positions are we talking about? Have we gone that far with regard to oil and gas and the devolution process on the Northern Accord?

Mr. Chairman, the main document or the main plan we have for our needs in the event of devolution is through the Non-Renewable Resource Development Strategy. In that strategy, we have laid out a four-year plan of what our needs are until devolution actually happens. So that continues to be our main plan.

In addition to that and in the meantime as we move through devolution, we are also working on a number of fronts, the Intergovernmental Forum is one, industry is another. We are taking on a lot of smaller, more specific projects in order to maximize benefits. These go from helping with travel assistance to human resource coordinators to looking at the kind of support we needed for the Aboriginal Pipeline Group and some of those more specific ones. Overall, it is the Non-Renewable Resource Strategy that continues to be our plan.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Regarding wildlife and wildlife protection and habitat, this government is responsible for the habitat of wildlife and also we do have agreements that we have with international organizations and other provinces and in the territory. I am mostly speaking with regard to the Porcupine Caribou herd where this government is responsible for the habitat and the protection of the population of the herd, knowing what is happened in Alaska with regard to the 10-02 lands. Also we have an international Porcupine Caribou agreement that has been signed between the Government of Canada, the United States and also between the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Yukon. What is this government doing to ensuring that we are living up to our obligations under those international agreements that this government is signature to?

Mr. Chairman, first of all, with regard to the Porcupine Caribou Management Board, we do participate on the board. The international Porcupine Board is made up of representatives from both Canada and the United States. Our department is represented by one member and an alternate member. So we continue on the international level to work with that one.

At the territorial level, we are involved in support to a number of renewable resource boards. The Canadian Porcupine Caribou Management Board, we have one member on that one, and again an alternate member on it. We monitor very closely what is happening between Canada and the United States, especially on the Porcupine Caribou herd.

We are aware of the discussions that the Prime Minister had with President Bush. We have in the past written several letters supporting Canada's position on no drilling on the ANWR. On a number of fronts we continue to ensure that we are supporting the initiatives. Thank you.

I have a question for the Minister. In his statement he mentioned the $1 million they have to invest, especially through the subsidiaries. I have been working with the organizations within my region trying to access dollars from this government, but at our regional offices they are saying they do not have any money. But knowing that we have $1 million to invest in the Northwest Territories through the NWT Development Corporation, I find it hard to believe that we cannot even get $20,000 out of this government to do a preliminary study to access federal dollars.

I would like to know exactly what the government is doing to ensure that small communities and regions outside Yellowknife are able to access dollars from this government. It seems that because everything is based out of Yellowknife, they have better access to the boards and better access to the departments. Yet at the regional level, where resources are needed because we do not have any economic development agreements in place, or resources at the regional level. Or if it has been there, it seems as if it has vanished.

I would like to ask the Minister exactly what he is doing to improve the relationship between the regional centres outside Yellowknife, and also the small communities, so they can take advantage of the monies that are within the organizations such as the NWT Development Corporation, where they say that they have an investment of $1 million that they can look at? I would like to ask the Minister, what are they doing to improve that relationship?

Mr. Chairman, the main thing we are doing is a review of our business support services. As I mentioned before, that report should be available to us at the end of March and hopefully give us some direction. Currently, we cannot mix NWT Development Corporation dollars with the department dollars. The Development Corporation money and priorities and so on are set largely through that corporation and through their board and their president. It is not easy for us, we need $20,000 to dip into that other budget.

At the regional level, we have always allowed our superintendents a fair bit of flexibility in determining regionally how the money is going to be allocated. There is quite a bit of flexibility there. I think all of the regions would like to have more money. The one thing that we are proposing for this coming year in order to ensure that everybody has the opportunity, is that we are limiting our BDF grants to $25,000, so you do not have three or four applications taking it all up. We will be able to help more people. Thank you.