Thank you, Mr. Handley. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for Mr. Miltenberger, the Minister of Health and Social Services. I have a number of outstanding issues with respect to commitments that have been made regarding delivery of Health and Social Services programs in Hay River. I'm going to try and cover them off within one set of questions. Mr. Speaker, there has been a plan for some time now to do some fairly significant renovations to the Hay River hospital which houses a lot of the Health and Social Services programs. There was information that had somehow ended up at a staff meeting there which lead some of the employees to be concerned that the schedule and time frame for the hospital renovations had somehow been changed to move some of them back. I wanted the Minister to provide clarification of that today for the benefit of the workers and the residents of Hay River. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the renovations in Hay River are slated to go ahead. We are just in the process of concluding a report that's been looking at the facility review of all the facilities in the Northwest Territories on the acute care side, the long-term care side and the usage and anticipated needs in the future. Once that report is done, we will be moving ahead with the actual master planning for the mid-life renovations in Hay River. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, so at this time then the Minister can confirm that there have been no alterations made to the renovation plans and the capital dollars that have been identified for future years for the Hay River hospital. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the project is in the capital plan and main estimates and it will be done.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, then in keeping with other commitments that I've had issues and concerns raised to me about, that I have been in the presence of the Minister on visits to Hay River, which I thank him for, but there was an outstanding issue with respect to wage parity for the workers in health and social services in Hay River who are not UNW employees and have a separate collective bargaining union. I was wondering if the Minister could confirm for the House that this commitment has been delivered upon. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this issue has been on the table for some time. There's another round of collective bargaining that's going to be underway here and that will continue to be discussed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if the Minister could indicate for us, are the workers of the Hay River Health and Social Services Board at parity and equity for benefits and salaries as are the UNW employees who are employed in the other communities in the Northwest Territories at this time? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is one of the key pieces in the negotiations that are going to be underway. One of the outstanding issues, let me put it this way, is the issue of pensions. That has yet to be resolved. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question will be to the Minister of FMBS, the Honourable Mr. Roland. Mr. Speaker, my concern is we need an attitude change out there because of the high cost of fuel. What is our government doing to monitor the consumption of energy, referring to both power, as well as fuel oil with respect to GNWT assets? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for the FMBS, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as a government, we have on a number of occasions through budget exercises, looked at the consumption of our resources, whether it be heating oil, electrical, water and sewer; we've looked at those in areas and targeted areas we think we could have some savings in. The Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development has done some work in the past. The Housing Corporation has done some work in the past in trying to save the precious resources we have out there. As the Government of the Northwest Territories, we do have a number of other things that we do to try to mitigate the costs to individuals in the Northwest Territories; through our Territorial Power Support Program or subsidy programs that we have in place for seniors, for example, on fuel. So we do a number of other things, as well. We've done some things during normal budget exercises and we're hoping that departments, through those exercises, are looking at those on an annual basis. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Minister for his overview of an annual basis but, Mr. Speaker, I'm referring to the crisis of oil prices. We need an action plan, a new policy, that looks at everything from idling our cars and trucks, our buildings, by turning our lights off, by turning our fuel heat registers down a little bit. We'd be foolish to think that there wouldn't be a rider on this year's power bill due to the oil prices. What is the Minister doing to avert this potential crisis that we'll be seeing in endless amounts of supplementary appropriation bills or special warrants to deal with this crisis? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on an annual basis, we work with the departments to try to come up with their costs they will need to run the programs and services identified for that year. One of the things we do, again, is we do our work and look at the existing costs of services out there. The Member is right, though; we will be having to look at and address the issue of the increased price of fuel. That is something we have directed the departments to live within their means at this point because we knew that the prices were changing quite substantially; either on the high side or dropping. We're going to have to wait for actual costs to come back and address them at that point. We haven't tried to do things in the sense of providing departments with funding up front on an estimate basis, because the prices were fluctuating too much when we put our plans together. Thank you.