Mr. Chairman, the criteria that FMB uses in determining whether or not to provide money through a special warrant or a supp is urgency. If there's an urgent need to do it now before it can be fit into the business plans. Second is it has to be in the public interest. There has to be some good public reason in terms of public money that we have to do this now. The third one has to be that the department does not have sufficient money in its appropriation to handle this. But I'm not familiar with the particular project Mr. McLeod is referring to, so I'm not sure what the problems were there. Thanks.

Mr. Chairman, in the case of Fort Providence, I believe the community would have met all the criteria that was required. It concerns me, and I don't want to criticize Tuk because I'm not in a position to judge, but it seems like we've paid a lot of attention to this community in terms of roads. I would like to ask the Minister if he could tell us what is the total amount that we've spent on Tuk roads through supplementary appropriations in the last three or four years.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that this is the only project we've had during the life of this government in Tuk is the $1.3 million. That's the only one.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Chairman, I don't know if my memory has served me correct, but I understand that we spent a lot of money stockpiling gravel to fix this road. We're looking at more projects for paving, we're going to road widening. I'm not sure, but I don't know why this one qualifies as an emergency. We knew the road was deteriorating, at least the department knew the road was deteriorating for some time now. Why does it come in under a supplementary appropriation and is considered an emergency when the condition of the road must have been, I'm sure because we've been dealing with the Tuk road for some time now. So maybe we could get some clarification on that.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, last September, September 2002, there was a request for a special warrant from MACA for the $1.3 million for the road. The FMB looked at it. The reason it qualified on all three counts were, number one, the road was in terrible shape and they were going to lose the base of the road, the top was worn right off it. Second is that the gravel crusher was in the community, and we could only get gravel on the winter road. The gravel crusher is scheduled to leave the community this summer and I believe go into the Sahtu. To wait would have meant keeping that gravel crusher for an extra year in the community. Second, we probably would have lost that road altogether. So those were the conditions for approving the special warrant last September. Then the gravel was hauled over the winter. The gravel crushing I believe has been largely completed and the road is in the process of being finalized. That's why we have the carryover of the $123,000 here. So each situation where we are asked to approve a special warrant has a little different circumstance, but we always use the same criteria. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think each special warrant and each allocation that is taking place here for Tuk fits under a different heading and different system of distributing the money, but it's all going to the same place. If you start adding those numbers up, it becomes a huge amount. I, on one hand, have been requesting for roads, for example, on the Hay River Reserve. I've supplied information to this government and showed that we've had five people killed in the last 10 years. I've showed how many accidents we've had within the community along the same stretch of road, and I don't see it in a special warrant. We have an approach that's kind of hit and miss. If we have a few dollars, we'll put it towards it. But at the rate we're going with that, following the proper procedure through the capital planning system, it's going to take 10 or 15 years before we can address the problem with the Hay River road. But in this case, we're going to crush the gravel, widen the road, upgrade the road and pave it within a year, and it's all under special warrants and supplementary appropriation. I think there's a double standard, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. I didn't hear a question there. On page 10, regional operations, not previously authorized, $3.004 million.

We'll go back to regional operations for a second. Special warrants, $192,000.

On page 11, Municipal and Community Affairs, regional expenditures, regional operations, not previously authorized, sports, recreation and youth, negative $10,000.

School of community government, negative $120,000.

Total department, not previously authorized, $2.845 million.

Special warrants, total department, $192,000.

Page 12, Public Works and Services, operations expenditures, directorate, not previously authorized, negative $53,000.