Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the meeting that I mentioned earlier with the Minister, the Minister was reported as saying that our health board would be given a mandate for negotiation before the collective bargaining process commences. That bargaining process commences next month.

Does the Minister have a contingency plan in place in the event that negotiations break down, that includes a legislative imposition of any aspect of the government's bargaining mandate?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this process is just getting underway. It is a unique circumstance. I am confident that we will negotiate collectively a satisfactory package so that all parties involved will be satisfied. That is the approach we are taking as we start this process and I am confident that is where we will end up in due course. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The cancellation of the transfer of the Hay River Community Health Board caused substantial turmoil to the employees of the Hay River Community Health Board. A great deal of time and effort was spent by a good many preparing for this government-imposed plan. Then abruptly, the rug was pulled out from under them when the plan was scrapped.

Will the Minister please inform this House whether his department plans to compensate the health board, the union and the many individuals who spent hours and hours of their own time pursuing this fruitless exercise? For the resources they were required to expend. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this process is yet to conclude. It has taken a somewhat different direction. The process was agreed to beforehand. They got us to the point of still working on transfer. When the decision was made not to proceed with the transfer we embarked on another course of action which is the collective bargaining process, so that process is still underway. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do not want to appear woebegone and stricken with sadness over the challenges we have in front of us, but we have tremendous challenges with our highway system. We just do not have the money to be able to do the jobs the way they should be done in the first place. We should be doing it by completely reconstructing some roads. We should be doing more training. We should be doing things differently, but we have to make our money go as far as we can. So we have done some work. Our engineers are not entirely happy with what we have to do, but they are trying to do the best they can.

In the case of the roads the Member referred to, yes, we expected that there would be some breakthroughs in the chipsealing that was done and some of the other work. There has been some work done in September. There will be more work done next year by the contractor in fixing up some of the breaks. Of course, our department will continue with its maintenance work. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, certainly I will continue to work with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment to determine how we can best have training on all of our projects, including the ones that Mr. Nitah is referring to. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, certainly, but I cannot make any firm commitments with the community right now. We have not done our business plans for next year and for future years, and those are things that will have to be taken into consideration as we look at our budget in future years. It is hard to be more specific than that, looking ahead at next year's budget. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, we will do the best job we can. I think we have some good people working on maintenance and so on in our department in all areas. Mr. Speaker, I cannot make a commitment now about something that is in next year's budget and has to go through the committee process and through the Legislative Assembly. I do not know what money I will have next year. Thank you.