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

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Public Works and Services, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the process Public Works and Services uses, we first are requested by the client department to identify a cost for a specific project. The client department normally puts forward an idea of what the project would consist of. In this case, the North Slave Correctional Institute, the department was given a basic plan and design of what the client wanted. The department then went to the consultants, as we did not have any information on file for this particular type of structure. We went to consultants down south. We received from them estimated costs for this type of a building.

We are assuming that they then gather their information based on what experience they have building those types of structures down south. In this particular case, Public Works received from the consultants prices in the range of $35 million for this particular type of building. However, the consultants did point out that they did not have any real past experiences to base these figures on, because there was not any of that type of infrastructure in Canada, where you build a jail more towards rehabilitating prisoners rather than just holding them in as prisoners. They came forward with these prices and that price range.

We then took this back to the client department, the Department of Justice, and we told them this is what our consultants tell us is the estimate for this project. The client department then puts that into the budget and that is the figure we work with. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It seems to be rather unfortunate that some communities cannot access infrastructure projects or capital projects, such as swimming pools. We cannot just put that as part of the plan, yet we are seeing too many projects that have cost overruns. We are well over $10 million if all of these projects were approved. At the same time, there are other communities that cannot even get on the list.

I would like to know if the Minister could provide this Assembly with a list of the projects within the last three years that have experienced cost overruns. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. I am having some difficulty with that question, Mr. McLeod. Perhaps it would be better as a written question because it seems very detailed. However, if you are just asking if the Minister would provide that, a quick yes or no would probably be the answer. Mr. Minister, if you are comfortable with that.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can certainly provide the information to the Member. However, I cannot guarantee that I am going to get it to him in the next few days in order to assist you with the timelines of the session. However, I can provide the Member with that information.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I was hoping that the Minister would at least give us a few examples off the top of his head, however, a written list of projects will be fine.

I wanted to ask a final question regarding project overruns. I would like to know, since there are so many projects that are experiencing cost overruns, is the Minister or the department looking at a mechanism or a process to eliminate or control cost overruns on some of these projects? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister responsible for the Department of Public Works and Services, Mr. Steen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question from the Member. The department continues to evaluate why our projects are going over. We try to take steps that would prevent the next projects from going over. We record, for instance, within the department, all the information that is related to a specific project.

We try to gather and do an analysis of what is causing the cost overruns, what the market was at that time. All of those things are taken into consideration. We then use that as guidelines when we put forward a price on the next project of a similar nature.

For instance, when we are constructing schools or constructing buildings for communities, we do not necessarily run into as many cost overruns because we have information to base our figures on. The only unknown in every case is the market. We have no control over the market. In this particular case, the market was going haywire as far as price was concerned and it is causing us problems.

However, we pointed out very early in the discussions with the Members and with the client department that we did not add inflation into the 1999 figure of $45 million. We did not take into consideration inflation, so that was one of the problems. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in our session a year ago, the Minister of Health and Social Services was under some fire because the Stanton Territorial Hospital did not have an approved operating budget. I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services this year, does Stanton Territorial Hospital have an approved budget for this fiscal year?

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, all the boards, all the authorities have their budgets and we are currently in the process of finalizing the deficit reduction plans that will take all the other outstanding matters into line. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Supplementary, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am having trouble understanding. If the deficit recovery plan is not part of the approved budget, does that mean, for instance, that this year Stanton is running a surplus? The question now is how much of that surplus goes to pay off the deficit? Is that what the Minister means?

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in dealing with the accumulated debt of the boards, there was a process agreed to, a 60/40 split. The boards were asked to submit their deficit reduction plans to the department for review and we have been working with them. We are expecting to conclud that work by about June 15th and we will proceed to hopefully have that matter resolved by then. Thank you.