The Member is seeking unanimous consent to return to item 19, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters. Are there any nays? There are no nays. Item 19, consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters: Bill 22, Waste Recovery and Reduction Act; Bill 24, Midwifery Profession Act; Bill 25, Municipal Statutes Replacement Act; Bill 31, An Act to Amend the Official Languages Act, No. 3; Bill 32, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2, 2003-2004; Committee Report 18-14(6), Report on the Review of Bill 21, Protection Against Family Violence Act, Bill 24, Midwifery Profession Act, and Bill 26, Youth Justice Act; Committee Report 19-14(6), Report on the Review of Bill 22, Waste Recovery and Reduction Act, and Bill 25, Municipal Statutes Replacement Act; and Minister's Statement 89-14(6), Infrastructure Canada Commits $65 Million to NWT Resource Highways. By the authority given the Speaker by Motion 4-14(6), Committee of the Whole is authorized to sit beyond the time of adjournment until committee is prepared to report, with Mr. Krutko in the chair.

---Applause

I will call the Committee of the Whole to order. We have several items to deal with. What is the wish of the committee? Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would like to recommend that the committee continue consideration first of Bill 32, followed by Bill 22 and Committee Report 19-14(6) and then Bill 24 and Committee Report 18-14(6), followed by Bill 25 and then perhaps Bill 31.

Does the committee agree? We will continue on with Bill 32, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 2, 2002-2003 with Minister Handley. Would you like to bring in any witnesses, Mr. Handley?

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Does the committee agree the Minister bring in his witnesses?

Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort in the witnesses.

Mr. Minister, for the record, would you please introduce your witness?

Mr. Chairman, with me is Lew Voytilla, secretary to the Financial Management Board. Thank you.

Detail

Department Of Health And Social Services

Welcome, witness. When we adjourned yesterday, we were dealing with Health and Social Services, operations expense, ministry and corporate services, not previously authorized, $325,000. That was agreed.

Program support, not previously authorized, $1.076 million. At the time, I had Mr. Braden asking a question, so I will allow you your 10 minutes. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe when the clock ran out on us, I was asking if, through the Minister of Finance, the Minister of Health and Social Services was explaining to committee what an item calling for some AV equipment, laptops, training for a vital statistics project. The Minister, if I recall, had explained that our statistical database and process needs a big tune-up and this was equipment deemed necessary to retrain our people and improve our database. To go from that point, Mr. Chairman, does this mean the NWT is going to be getting into the era of electronic data for our medical records? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I will refer that to the Minister of Health and Social Services. Thank you.

Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is a national initiative that's looking at health records and systems. We are involved at that table. That is some way down the road. It's a very complex issue dealing with confidentiality, amongst other things. The systems we have right now are going to allow us to move away from hard copy and allow our own internal pieces of the system, components of the system, to talk to each other and to share information and be able to give us technology to respond in an effective way. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would just remind Members, we are on page 9 of the bill under Health and Social Services program delivery support. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The supp notes indicate because of some bookkeeping and it looks to me like a transfer from a capital expenditure to an O and M expenditure, that is the reason for this showing up here. I guess my question is more back to the Minister of Finance, what is the explanation here for this shift in allocation? It's a fair amount of money, $250,000. Could we get an explanation for that?

Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, this allocation was originally budgeted as capital investment appropriation, but when they did an assessment of what the equipment was, because it was under $50,000 for any of the equipment, it's operations expenditures. So this is just a transfer from capital to operations. Thank you.

Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This is $250,000 worth of hardware and software. It would seem to be an extraordinary expenditure, especially as it is coming up through a supp. How is it then that we are dealing with this in this format as a supplementary, Mr. Chairman, with expenditures of this size, I would really like to anticipate that they are in business plans and are part of our normal annual budgeting cycle. Why are we dealing with such a large amount of money now in a supp? Thank you.

Mr. Handley.