Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am willing to put together a meeting with my officials to meet with the community if necessary to address this issue, and we will try to do that as early as possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Member for the question. Mr. Speaker, for clarification, the figure of $44,000 quoted in the paper is not accurate. The most recent figure we have for the trip, if it were to return from Nuuk back to Yellowknife direct, would be $34,000. Also, there is no Challenger 2 jet. This is a Citation 2.

Mr. Speaker, if I may take a minute to clarify at how we arrived at the decision. In the first place, it was only my party of three people that I was involved in to go to Iqaluit and Nuuk. What we found out was that in order to go from Iqaluit to Nuuk and return, that was going to cost us two charters at roughly $7,000 a charter, plus the airfare from here to Iqaluit, which is $3,000 a passenger. What we found out by January 22nd was that there were not even anymore seats available on the airlines, so if we were to make the decision, we would have to make it pretty fast. We then phoned around to see if we could get better charter figures. We found that to go from here to Iqaluit return with a jet was $17,000, capable of holding eight passengers. That works out to $24,000 on airfares, plus it would bring us into Iqaluit on the day of the opening, rather than on the 15th, when we would have to sit in Iqaluit for three days waiting for the events to start. Furthermore, the House was still in session on that day.

There were all kinds of problems like this that we were trying to address. In the end, the ultimate decision was that if we take on eight passengers, it was cheaper than it is to go airfare plus room and board and time away from the office. It was far cheaper to use the jet. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the need to be well represented there is not in question, and I appreciate the information about all the logistics. I wonder if the Minister could advise the House who will be travelling with him to represent the NWT? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I indicated in my earlier statement, initially there was only my party that I was dealing with. However, since the Arctic Winter Games included cultural activities, I had my office contact the Minister of Education to see if he had any plans to go as well.

He had plans to take himself, myself and two -- myself would have been me, my spouse and the E.A. That left two open seats. A couple of days later, I received a request from the Commissioner's office as to whether or not I could find a seat on that jet for the Commissioner, as there were no available seats on commercial flights.

The Commissioner was and is still taking part on this flight, as well as myself, my spouse and my E.A. We had one other seat available at that time. After discussion amongst the Ministers, it was suggested to offer it to an MLA. I had no fair way to do this, Mr. Speaker, except to offer it to the first MLA I met in the hallway. That happened to be Mr. Bell. He accepted, but now I understand he is withdrawing that and now it is Mr. Nitah who is going. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to confirm, is there a full plane that is going over there, or are there still a couple of vacancies? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, at the present time today, I am aware of one vacancy on the jet. However, the problem to fill the vacancy is there are no hotels on the other end. That caused the other half of the problem. There is no accommodation on the other end. Even if we put another passenger on, we have no rooms for them. To finalize this thing, Mr. Speaker, there is the Commissioner and her E.A., myself, my spouse, Mr. Ootes and his E.A., and there is Mr. Nitah. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Final supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the logistics are challenging at the best of times. I congratulate the Minister for putting this together. I would like to ask when events come up that require or warrant the Northwest Territories' representation, would the Minister consider expanding that representation perhaps to people outside of the Legislative Assembly? I am thinking of other elected municipal or perhaps aboriginal or First Nations leaders. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that would certainly be the next option we would choose. I should clarify something here, Mr. Speaker. The department had the option of using the jet chartered by Sports North. In order for us to do that, we would be taking seats from the general public, who really have just as much right to those seats as we do. Rather than do that, we decided that we were going to obtain our own seats, either through the commercial airlines or through a charter, and leave the Sports North charters available for Members, the general public, the athletes, the participants. That is what we decided to do. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is basically correct. It has been in place for some time. It is similar to arrangements that other jurisdictions have in place. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Supplementary, Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.