Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Thank you. The area that concerns me the most of this whole project, Mr. Chairman, has already been flagged by Ms. Lee, and that is the mention in the bill of an airport user fee of $6.6 million out of the total $11.2 million that will be somehow assessed and collected. Six-point-six million dollars is an extraordinary amount of money to assess on the, I think, relatively small number of users for this airport. I recall in some briefings, Mr. Chairman, that we were told Yellowknife is actually a very busy airport compared to others in Canada for the number of passenger movements. That may well be true, but we have a relatively small population that are very frequent fliers. I think what we're going to see through whatever kind of an airport user fee system is designed, is that a relatively small number of passengers are going to be paying an extraordinarily large portion of such a fee. Six-point-six million dollars coming out of mainly the Yellowknife economy, if you will, to pay for this project.

Mr. Chairman, what concerned me most at this stage was that while the government is ready to spend $3.4 million and has awarded tenders and they're going to be closing within days and a whole bunch of stuff is going on, we do not have the outline of any kind of a program here that says how we're going to get $6.6 million from the travelling public. In that sense, Mr. Chairman, this is a really bad piece of work, I think, to present to us at this point because it is so poorly outlined. We have no information whatsoever on which to base the merits of this. You're asking me as an MLA here just to say okay to $3.4 million in special warrants, when the expectation is that $6.6 million is going to come out of the general public and there's no plan whatsoever for how this is going to be done. It's where I really have to draw a line in here in terms of the preparation, the thinking and the planning that has gone into this. It is not a good piece of work and that's the question that I guess I put to the Minister. What is your proposal for $6.6 million and how do you anticipate that we're going to make this palatable? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I think it's important to remember that the $6.6 million is over 10 years. So it's about $660,000 a year. I don't believe the Minister has a final plan yet for how that money would be raised, whether it's from landing fees or an airport improvement fee. Mr. Braden suggested we have a small number of users. In fact, a couple of years ago there were 300,000 plus passengers through that air terminal building. So even if it was a couple dollars a head, you would pretty much raise that amount in an airport improvement fee. But perhaps we can ask Mr. McLeod what his timetable is for determining how that money would be raised because, as I understand it, it hasn't been set yet.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, as directed by Cabinet, the department is currently working on a decision paper for cost recovery. We're targeting the end of November to bring that forward. The number that we're targeting to recover is $6.6 million, as the Minister indicated, over 10 years. At the present time there are already fees, as has been indicated. However, these two fees that are being collected now, the terminal fees and the landing fees, are well below the rates in southern Canada. Those are the areas we're looking at with the possibility of airport improvement fees. So we have a number of options in front of us. That decision hasn't been made. We have to take it to Cabinet and we'll be bringing a paper forward by the end of November.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll pick up where my colleague, Mr. Braden, left off. I'm really concerned, as well, about this $6.6 million and Cabinet's decision. I would like to know what the rationale was in Cabinet to go forward with this thing under the cost recovery plan without a plan. Here we have a $6.6 million expenditure that Cabinet basically approved through this $3.4 million special warrant with no plan, no consultation and, again, Madam Chair, no public consultation, no public debate on this issue. To me, Madam Chair, this is wrong. I'd like to ask the Minister what was Cabinet's rationale for proceeding with this without a plan on the cost recovery? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. At FMBS, not Cabinet, there was some discussion of an airport improvement fee. The Minister has proposed that he be given the opportunity to come back and look at what the other options might be. By the way, that's not part of this supplementary appropriation. What you have here is the expenditure. That's what is before you today. For the $6.6 million it has been proposed that that be accomplished through cost recovery. The way in which it would happen has not been finally set. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know some of my colleagues were asking questions earlier; that $3.4 million is included in the $6.6 million, is it not, Madam Chair? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Sorry, Madam Chair. Could I get the question repeated, please?

Thank you. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The total project of $11.2 million includes $4.6 million from CATSA and $6.6 million that's going to be recovered. The $3.4 million is part of the $6.6 million, is it not? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The $3.4 million is part of the $11.2 million. We're actually expecting $2 million from CATSA this year, so $1.4 would actually be more likely the GNWT's out-of-pocket expense this year.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess it's splitting hairs, but, again, we're going into this and once you start the renovations at the airport -- and they've already been started, Madam Chair -- you enter into the full expenditure and you also have to take into account the cost recovery of that expenditure. I don't think the Minister's response was good enough, in my mind, Madam Chair, in terms of what Cabinet's rationale for proceeding with a project that's $11.2 million and, by anybody's best guess, could go off the rails quite easily as other capital projects have and end up costing the government $13 million, $14 million, $15 million, and then is the cost recovery of that money going to be born on the backs of the travelling public? Again, I'll draw the Minister's attention to the fact that there is no public debate. None. It costs enough in terms of travelling out of Yellowknife by air.

Absolutely, it's very expensive. You can fly from Edmonton to Europe for the same amount of money that it cost to travel from Yellowknife to Edmonton. If we are going to increase that cost at all, I think that's a huge step, Madam Chairperson, in terms of people's affordability on travelling out of Yellowknife, or even travelling into Yellowknife, and I don't think it's fair to the public that this debate never had a chance to be discussed in public. It's not the way things should have happened, and again I'm disappointed that Cabinet would go down the road of full cost recovery and FMB would go down the road of full cost recovery on this $6.6 million without any type of public discourse on this issue.

It is a shame, it really is. Thank you, Madam Chairperson.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I guess it's important to point out the decision on cost recovery or how it's going to happen hasn't been made, so there are opportunities -- and you are having it right now -- for some comment and some debate. But I think it's important to remember that when this was approved on June 30th, the fiscal situation that we were looking at was quite severe.

We had, not that long ago, gone through a budget session. Members will recall that the Minister of Finance in his budget address announced that we would be looking at next year's budget -- the one that will be coming up this coming January or February/March -- there would be a significant reduction. Departments were being challenged to reduce their budgets. All of us had recently been given that direction when the call letter went out for the business plan process, that we were going to have to give up money through all of our departments. So the question when the Minister of Transportation came forward and said well, if we don't do this, no one is going to be able to fly from Yellowknife to any one of the national airports in Canada as of January 2006. We have no money, how do we do it? So the issue of where we would find the money was one that was actually front and centre, and certainly I don't think Mr. Ramsay would say that we should have cut the money out of the school or some other important public project in order to pay for this, but we had no choice but to pay for the money if we wanted the public still to be able to travel.

So at that point the decision was made that it had to be done on cost recovery. If the Minister is to propose that it comes forward as an airport improvement fee, legislation would have to come before this House. Members will have a chance then if that's the way in which it's going to be handled, to discuss it and debate it at that time, if that's what the Minister proposes. But he has an opportunity now to take a look at what makes the most sense, in order to try and accomplish this through cost recovery. But Members want to provide some advice, I'm sure he would welcome what advice you have and will take that into account as he's considering what the options are for coming up with that $6.6 million. Thank you, Madam Chair.