Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Human Rights Act as we know is before the House and we do not see that we are violating the act as proposed. However, the act is not in effect yet, I should emphasize, because it is before this House. We do have, as previously stated, an interpretation on how to treat impact benefit agreements. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier this week we had an opportunity to brief Members on the Social Assistance Act with regard to income support. We had a fairly extensive briefing where we outlined some of the concerns that we had with regard to our areas where we administer the income support side. We pointed out that one of the areas of concern is the relationship to the productive choice area. What is happening is that our income support levels, of course, are at a certain level that allow people to remain on income support and between the level of those who are the working poor there is a very fine line there. We have been very concerned as to how to treat areas that individuals, and issues, where people want us to change how to treat the certain areas of payments. This has been of concern to us. We are interested in continuing to look at this, Mr. Speaker, with the provision of course that we have to be extremely concerned about the level of income support payments that we make, strictly from the point of view of, does it then defeat our productive choice policy?

We have always taken that into consideration when we have concerned ourselves with IBAs and spousal support payments and bingo winnings. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The social assistance regulations has an area called unearned income, and it has always been treated as unearned income, Mr. Speaker. the legal opinion that we had received, a summary of which we passed on to the Member, indicated that we were correct in that process.

One of the reasons why this was done was because we have no access to the IBA agreements, which is considered a private company, and the beneficiaries, the Dogrib community people. We had no information of how to access the information contained in the agreement or what the agreement says.

I should state though, Mr. Speaker, that because IBA arrangements have extrinsic evidence that we can possibly consider, I am working on a process that will take into account these payments. I need to take that forward to Cabinet and to the FMB to take into consideration. Also, I am checking with Aboriginal Affairs to see what implications it might have in order to proceed with recognizing IBAs and looking at not deducting that from payments.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The decision was done in relationship to the regulations. Under the regulations it was classed as unearned income so we proceeded on that basis. As I stated though, we are looking at the moment at considering the extrinsic evidence that may be there and I want to check with Aboriginal Affairs to see if we can proceed with recognizing the IBAs as not having to deduct them from payments. Therefore, we are prepared to open the door and look at this. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I have been approached by the health care workers on that issue. The difficulty we have is that under legislation we are not allowed to set up a separate bargaining unit for the purposes of simply paying someone differently. It just does not allow it to be done legally. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think nurses and allied health care workers believe that it is more than just an issue of pay, it is an issue of understanding their concerns about their working conditions. They may not be the same as those in other areas. The Minister has right now a separate table going for the Power Corporation. What is the difference? Why could we not have a separate table going for nurses and allied health care workers just as we do for the Power Corporation?

Mr. Speaker, certainly if there is a way around that then I am open to doing it. I am not sure on the advice that we could do it, I am not sure that the Power Corporation arrangement necessarily sets a precedent but I am open to it. The advice that I have received though is that we cannot do that simply for pay and benefits. When I said pay earlier I meant pay and benefits as well. That includes of course working conditions and shifts and that sort of thing.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I find it hard to understand how the Power Corporation, being different from other government workers and nurses and allied health care workers being separate. Teachers have their own association.

Mr. Speaker, will the Minister rather than saying he does not believe something, will he undertake to find out whether or not we can in fact set up a separate bargaining unit for nurses and Allied health care workers and report back to this House in the next week?