Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would like to echo some of the comments Ms. Lee made with respect to Arctic Canada Trading Company Limited. I know that the retailers just before Christmas were quite concerned about the approach and I think that it would be really quite useful to push the issue of having a retailer on the board just to try to make sure that retailer concerns are brought to the board level and that they are kept in mind when decisions of this sort are being made. The Minister said that Arctic Canada Trading Company Limited was not making sales at retail. Is it not true that the public may purchase items at retail on an individual basis through the Web site? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So, although the Minister said earlier the company was not selling individual items at retail to the public, they are, in fact, through their Web site. I know that the retailers had suggested that it would be fairly easy to adapt the Web page, so that if somebody who was looking to purchase something there, if they entered their postal code, for instance, the Web page could redirect them to northern retail suppliers and indicate that in the NWT, the public was expected to deal through retail suppliers. I know this is fairly common practice. It happens on Web pages all the time that people are redirected to someone else. Again, this was something that had been suggested by the retailers. Can the Minister advise us whether not he will instruct the corporation to take a look at that approach?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the Minister's commitment to do that. I know the retailers were quite anxious to see that sort of approach.

In this Minister's opening comments, he talks about the energy strategy and how they are hoping to table an energy strategy in June. I know that right now, there is a discussion paper that is out and I just wanted to tell the Minister that I am somewhat concerned that, if this is the document we are using to try to develop an energy strategy, I see some significant flaws. I would be very concerned if we were going to be developing an energy strategy based on this. I will give you an example, Mr. Chairman, of what I speak of. I am going to read this verbatim: "Consultation question number two, energy efficiency..." and this is from the Towards an Energy Strategy discussion paper, "Is there general acceptance that residential commercial energy users have a responsibility to manage their energy use to both reduce their costs and reduce their impact on the environment? Should energy efficiency improvements be achieved by restricting consumer practices (e.g., energy codes) or through incentive programs?" Mr. Chairman, I would characterize that as wordy jargon. It doesn't really ask any meaningful questions. It's very difficult to understand and I don't know how the department can expect to get reasonable answers from it. Let's break it down. One of the questions is, is there a general acceptance that residential and commercial energy users have a responsibility to manage their energy use to -- and pick one of the endings -- reduce their impact on the environment? Well, of course, we all think we should try to do things to impact less on the environment, but there is no discussion about what that might cost. There is no real setting out of what the options are here. What happens if we do this and what happens if we do that? I know there is an intent here to try to keep the discussion paper brief, but some of the questions that are being posed, it's just impossible to really get anything out of them.

Taken on their face, I think the answers are predetermined when you ask this question. It's motherhood and apple pie, but it doesn't get into what are the costs, what are the tradeoffs, what do we trade if we choose one over the other? I have some problems with that. Further on, we get into the energy supply options, consultation question number three. The end of the question is, "or are energy consumers prepared to pay a premium." Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to pay a premium, but it may not be the same premium that the Minister is prepared to pay or that you are prepared to pay or that my constituents can afford to pay.

We need to know what we are talking about here -- what sort of premium -- and we are not getting to that level of discussion here. We don't say to the people who are reading this, if you are prepared to pay one cent a kilowatt hour more, we can do this. We can reduce our oil use in the NWT by this amount and we can get closer to achieving the goal set by the Kyoto Protocol. If you are prepared to pay five cents a kilowatt hour more, here is what we can achieve or if you are prepared to take some other approach, but you are not going to get anything meaningful out of this unless you get to that level of detail. You don't get something the government can take to the bank and say this is what the public wants, unless we get into that level of detail.

The next question we ask is should we privatize the Power Corporation? Well, there is no detailed discussion in this paper about why we might want to privatize it or not privatize it. People are basically left to make a decision depending on their personal philosophies. Some people believe that government shouldn't own corporations. They are going to come back and say privatize. Others feel that essential public services should be maintained by Crown corporations. They will say don't privatize, but there is no discussion as to why one should be considered or why another should be considered. It's not set out for people to respond properly to.

The other thing that's missing in this whole thing is a lot of the recommendations that the government got in the Robertson report. For instance, where is the discussion about franchises? That could have a significant impact over whether or not we should have a public utility or a private utility. I am really troubled. I want to be clear. I do think the Government of the Northwest Territories should have an energy strategy. I have said that for years, but I am troubled that we are saying we are going to be tabling one in June based on what we get back from this discussion paper. I don't think this discussion paper will lead to the level of detail that I hope to see in an energy strategy, that I will be able to hold up to my constituents and say this is a real good guideline, something we can be proud of. That really concerns me, that we are going to come up with something that is, as another member who used to sit on this side of the House used to say, "good blue-chip information." It doesn't seem to be heading that way and I am really concerned about it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I wanted to explore a little bit more some of the renewable sectors of our economy with a particular focus, Mr. Chairman, on the tourism industry. Mr. Delorey has gotten into that area to some degree already. I guess what I would like to do is compare some of these sectors with the investment this government makes compared to the revenues and the outcomes that we get. Mr. Chairman, from looking at information such as the Statistics Quarterly, by this government, on economic and social activity in the NWT, by checking with the tourism industry and looking at other sources, there is no shortage of data available on what goes into these industries on the point of view of human resources and investment and then what comes out.

Rather than go through a whole bunch of statistics here, I will give you some rough math and I will qualify this, Mr. Chairman, this is rough math but I think my proportions are about right. Within the forest industry -- and this is forestry management, not firefighting control from what I can gather from the books here -- for every dollar that we gain in actual revenue, we spend $16. In the fur industry, for every dollar that we gain in retail sales, we spend $3. In the tourism industry, for every dollar in revenue that we gain, this government invests five cents. There is an extraordinary balance here, Mr. Chairman, in terms of dollars invested and outcome, if you will. Again, I wanted to qualify the understanding that I have and I am sure, that to a large extent, my colleagues will share this with me, that there are other requirements and advantages and benefits to investing in the forestry and fur industry and they are not and perhaps should not be linked to real outcome.

Mr. Chairman, what I wanted to illustrate here is the tourism industry for the investment that we put in, pales in comparison to what we get out of it. The investment we are putting into tourism hasn't changed in three years. I know the industry appreciates the investment we are putting into it, but we are just not giving this industry, which really is producing dollars, an estimated $40 million in pleasure and leisure visitations alone, that's not business and other traffic, and $40 million a year creates the equivalent of 825 full-time equivalent jobs and we are investing $1.8 million. So, Mr. Chairman, what I would like to get the Minister to talk about is the investment; the position that this department has in terms of investing in these industries and putting dollars where there are real returns as opposed to those industries where we are really lagging. What is the philosophy? What is the approach? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Antoine. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The Minister makes a really good point about the value of forests to so many aspects of life up here. The forest and the land really define to a great extent who we are and what we are. So I want to underscore that. If I could make a point though, to do a little bit of sparring here, Mr. Chairman, there is an additional almost $27 million in the forest area devoted to forest fire protection and the money I was looking at is just in forest management. So we are already putting a lot of money into protecting the forest that was not part of my calculation, but I don't want to get into a statistical sparring match.

In the tourism industry, we are on the verge of something, yet another surge, another big build-up in tourism volumes, at least in this region of the NWT, and I am looking at two things that are going to happen. In a couple of years, the old Yellowknife highway, Highway No. 3, that piece of road that we have come to love and hate, is going to be totally rebuilt and paved. That 50-kilometre barrier to an enormous stream of rubber tire traffic is going to be opened up. In the space of four years, we are going to have the Mackenzie River bridge, if all goes well. Again, another barrier removed to road traffic coming into not only Yellowknife and the North Slave, but there will be spin-offs to communities in the South Slave as well. I wanted to ask in the tourism industry whether the department has been looking at these two developments in our transportation system and the impact they are going to have on the region and on the South Mackenzie as a whole and looked at that in terms of any strategies or investments or new marketing opportunities? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Antoine. The Chair will recognize Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I have another point I want to make or question I want to ask the Minister and it's with regard to the contaminated site at Giant Mine. Mr. Chairman, I do appreciate that there is a major discussion project going on headed by the federal government looking at the options of cleaning the ground contamination. I do believe the Minister is aware that the responsibility for cleaning the surface contamination lies with the department. The information I have is there is money being made available by the city government and DIAND to make progress in that area. I don't know if the Minister could verify this, but the department is showing reluctance in getting into this area to clean the sites up and contribute towards that area until there is a comprehensive agreement with the federal government. Could I get the Minister to verify whether that's the case and explain why the Minister is taking that road?

Thank you. Mr. Antoine.