Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Justice, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have been informed by senior departmental officials that they are continuing to work with the RCMP to ensure there is a level of service that can be provided. We will encourage the RCMP to continue to do the patrols and provide deterrents to property damage. We feel we are on the road now where we are going to be able to provide a secure level of service until such time as we can discuss future financial and human resource needs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Final supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Mr. Speaker, I am not sure what good it is to talk to the police and ask them to do the services at the same level when their funding level has not changed since 1981, 20 years ago, when the city had a population of about 10,000. Mr. Speaker, do we not agree that it is a lack of resources, and all the talk will not make any difference? Would the Minister consider providing more funds to the RCMP from the territorial budget? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Justice, Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will let the Member know that there is a police agreement in force. It was signed in 1991 and there are about ten years to go. In the interim, we are working with FMB and Cabinet to develop a plan to deal with the many policing issues facing us. Mr. Speaker, it is important to recognize that since this is a monetary issue, we are continuing to work with the appropriate agencies to identify the best method which will continue to help support, and perhaps increase, the level of funding to policing across the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question at this time would be directed to the Minister responsible for Finance, and it has to do with the fiscal situation. In the Minister's Budget Address, he refers to the longer-term outlook. Initially, the fiscal picture looks quite good, and my many questions in the past about a debt wall, it no longer seems to be there anymore. It is now gone because the light is so bright, we must wear shades, in a sense.

I would like to know, he does state in his address that in fact, if things do not continue to stay on the rise in the sense of our revenues, we will once again find ourselves in quite a situation around 2004-2005. I would like to know from the Minister why there is such a change in the fiscal situation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The short-term fiscal situation for us is certainly rosy in that we do have a surplus this year. We had a surplus last year. The surplus for last year was higher than we had anticipated, and for the current year, we have the same thing happening.

A lot of that has come from one-time corporate tax payments, as well as some adjustments we had the federal Minister of Finance make to our budget.

We cannot count on those one-time tax revenues being there, so the picture is less rosy in the near future at least, unless we have more federal investment into the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister has stated that there was some re-jigging of numbers, or some work on the federal initiatives or revenue side. Can the Minister inform us as to what areas resulted from the federal changes? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, the federal government has recalculated two factors in our grant; one being the provincial/local expenditure calculator. That is a factor in the formula, which is based on provincial and local municipal funding across Canada. That adjustment was made because of an error in calculation and it went retroactive, giving us about $60 million.

Since that time, the federal Minister has also reassessed the tax effort adjustment factor and that again gave us some retroactive money, I think roughly in the neighbourhood of $50 million, and also means some adjustment into the future.

Those would be the two main recalculations that were done by the federal government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if we just have to count on the reinvestment by the federal government, what kind of picture does that leave us when we come to the near future and the years beyond? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Trying to project our fiscal future is really a complex task, because the numbers I am using, the numbers I used in my Budget Address are based on the current financing formula. We have now entered into new negotiations on a financing formula. I am going to try to negotiate a better deal than we had the last time. I suppose every Finance Minister tries that.

The second is that we are also dealing with devolution and resource revenue sharing. Those discussions are starting this month. Hopefully, that will help us as well.

Third is our economy continues to grow. Our own source revenues continue to increase. Our tax revenues have increased by about 6 percent in this last year and we expect that to continue.

The other factor is, of course, that over the next 20 years or so, the federal government, just from the current oil and gas development that is projected and the mining development, will make somewhere in the neighbourhood of $18 billion to $20 billion dollars. That is billion, not million. That is substantial. We need to negotiate to have a bigger share of that money stay here in the North. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Once again, the picture is painted in bright colours. If we are counting on what we know we are going to receive in the near future, and the Minister states it in his forecast that in fact, we would be awfully close to our borrowing limit of $300 million again by late 2004-2005, why would we see such a shift from the picture today to two years down the road? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Finance, Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, to put some numbers to it, we expect to end the 2001-2002 year with a surplus of $160 million in our bank account. That is because of the one-time revenues we have received. However, starting in the 2003-2004 year, we could have about $87 million less than we are projecting for the 2002-2003 year, because the federal government would begin then to recalculate our own corporate tax revenues, unless those kept coming in. They would have made assumptions and overpaid us in 2002-2003. In 2003-2004, they take it back. We would probably be short in that year by about $78 million; in 2002-2003, we could be short by $118 million.

The net result, Mr. Speaker, is that by late 2004-2005, if nothing else changed, we still had the same formula, we made no progress on resource revenue sharing, we had no increase in federal investment in the North, we could be hitting our $300 million debt wall in late 2004-2005. Again, Mr. Speaker, those are all ifs, because there are a lot of calculations to be worked out between now and that time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Health and Social Services, regarding the comment he made earlier when I asked a question. He mentioned that he talked about the beds based on a thousand per capita distribution, that we looked pretty good compared to other jurisdictions. I would like to ask the Minister, exactly what is the rate of people affected by alcoholism compared to other jurisdictions?