No, Mr. Speaker. At this point there is no intention on the part of this government to change the business incentive policy. Of course, we would always listen to the suggestions of committee, should they suggest that we would consider it. But our feeling is at this point that we would not be proposing any change. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if there are no changes to the business incentive policy, is the Minister aware of any of the departments within the government that are putting out contracts and not applying the business incentive policy to them? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of RWED, Mr. Bell.

I am aware that the Housing Corporation has gone to the marketplace for the provision of housing in non-market communities and the BIP is being waived on this provision of housing.

Supplementary, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if this is a government policy and it's to be applied government-wide, how does the Housing Corporation get to waive the BIP on a contract that they put out? Who do they get permission from? Is it from RWED or is it from the government itself, the Cabinet? Where do they get permission to waive the BIP on a contract? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of RWED, Mr. Bell.

Thank you. My understanding is that the Housing Corporation approached Cabinet in the past Assembly and made the case that the provision of housing in non-market communities had to be done in the most cost-effective manner. They had concerns that this couldn't be achieved with the BIP in place and asked Cabinet to direct that they be allowed to waive the BIP on this contract. Thank you.

Final supplementary, Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it's really unfortunate that we spent so much time on this very issue over the last four years and we have so many issues in front of us right now, big issues to deal with with this government, and I'm very much afraid that this issue is going to rear its ugly head again and take up an awful lot of our time. I'm aware of other departments that are looking at playing with the BIP, whether it's the local preference or the 15 percent on different contracts. If this government has the BIP policy and if they feel that it's an important policy to this government, then I say that we stick to it. If not, let's do away with the BIP. But let's do one or the other. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of RWED, Mr. Bell.

Sorry, Mr. Speaker. I apologize. I did miss the question, if the Member could just restate the question. Thank you.

Mr. Delorey, restate the question.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the question was, is the Minister aware if the government still considers this policy to be beneficial to the government?

Minister of RWED.

Yes, Mr. Speaker, the government does believe that this is a policy that provides

benefit to the people of the Northwest Territories, has a validity and we certainly continue to support it. Thank you.

Item 7, oral questions. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question today is for the Minister of Finance and it has something to do with the budget address that was presented to us earlier today. An omission from that, I do believe, was travel and that the government was going to go department by department and reduce 25 percent of the overall travel budget. Having gone through the draft mains the last two-and-a-half weeks, it was very difficult for me to get a firm handle on which departments were spending what in terms of travel. I know there was a 25 percent reduction, but the real numbers were very hard to get to, Mr. Speaker. It seemed to me that in order to arrive at a travel budget it was the number of employees times about $10,000 and that's what the department arrived at in terms of a travel budget. So I'm asking the Minister if he could supply myself and other Regular Members with what the real numbers are in terms of travel for each department of this government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Finance, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is correct. We've told departments that there will be a 25 percent reduction for the upcoming year on discretionary travel. Non-discretionary travel such as medical travel, student financial assistance, those things, court appearances, court duty travel, have not been touched. So it's been discretionary travel. Those are difficult to follow through the business plans. Members will have the opportunity when each department comes forward to get specific details from them and we'll inform departments that they should be ready with that information. We could try and gather the information for past years, but for the upcoming year it would be difficult because within each department, there may be health boards and education boards and so on and it would be difficult to actually take out an actual amount that they've specified, because a lot of it is built in to either a directorate function or another wing of their department. It would be fairly difficult to get that kind of detail. I'll inform all Ministers and their departments that they should be ready with as much detail as they have when they come before Committee of the Whole with their specific departments. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Minister, for the response. Yes, it was very difficult as a regular Member to arrive at what the real numbers were, so if the Minister can ask the deputy ministers and the other Ministers of the departments to allow us to see what the real costs are in terms of travel, I think that would be beneficial for us. I know there's a 25 percent reduction. I don't know if that goes far enough. I don't know the real numbers, so it's very hard to make a decision of what we should do with that, Mr. Speaker.

I guess my final question is can we get the real numbers? I know he's going to ask, but I want to know if we can get the real numbers on travel, department by department. The medical travel, the student financial travel, things like that, that's not what we're trying to tackle here. We're trying to tackle the travel that's really unnecessary in this government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Finance.