Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, there have been exercises done by the government in the past, normally through Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development looking at other sources, whether it's wind energy or solar panels, as well as through the Power Corporation itself being that those are a number of other areas that deal outside of what we deal with just paying for the subsidy program. I will be taking those comments and delivering them to the other Ministers, and I'm looking forward to what we can come together with. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Allen. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The way the power support program is structured today, I don't think that would be able to apply. But we would look at seeing how that could be incorporated into the power support program. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. General comments. Next in line, I have Mr. Bill Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple of areas of detailed enquiry, but I will save them until we get to the appropriate part in the budget, Mr. Chairman. I did want to ask though of a reference the Minister made in his opening comments to continuing to invest in some software upgrades to our existing financial information system to keep it functional while a decision regarding its replacement is pending. We're going to spend almost $200,000 on these interim software upgrades, Mr. Chairman.

It's something that I know came before committee, I think in at least the last two years of the previous Assembly, that our financial information system was, like all technology, seeing its days come to an end. We have a huge reliance on this, it's a big part of our infrastructure and a serious decision, also a very expensive one. My question, Mr. Chairman, is at least to my recollection because this issue has been out there for I recall about two years now, we're still looking at options or still looking at making a decision regarding the replacement. What is taking so long? When and how are we going to get around to looking after this? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Member is right; there has been ongoing work in this area. The business case review has been completed and we are looking in the area of up to $15 million to replace that system. The next phase would be to go out and start trying to find a system that can replace the existing system, but it comes back down to the question if we don't have the dollars to do it, then there's no use going to that next stage. That's why you see us right now trying to make due and carry it a little bit longer. That decision is going to have to be made at some point and then we're going to have to go forward, but figures go between $11 million and $15 million for replacing the system and that was as a result of the business case review.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Okay. So if we had the money, we would do it right away. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If we had the money, it would be on our capital acquisition plan for this year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Thank you. That helps answer a question there, that we have made at least a technical decision. Okay, everything is going up in cost. As we continue to delay or defer this, the sense that I have is that this is not really an option for us. We're going to have to bite the bullet on this. For every year that we put this off, Mr. Chairman, how much more is it costing us? What's the inflation rate on this stuff? Are we unnecessarily deferring or delaying this necessary decision? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Trying to pinpoint what it would cost ongoing, besides the fact that we're putting more money into the existing system now, we know there's a direct cost there. Delaying the decision to replace the FIS system is difficult to nail down, because as technology changes, maybe we can come up with a better system that may be a little less or it could get more expensive. It's difficult to measure that portion. What we can measure are the direct costs that we keep adding in trying to prop up the system we have now.

Recognizing that, it is a critical situation and at some time we're going to have to bite that bullet or we're going to find ourselves in a whole lot of trouble in trying to track things by paper and pen again if the system were to ever crash. We're doing what we can and recognizing our capital acquisition plan and the dollars available that are very limited in trying to meet the critical core needs of residents out there. That's why this hasn't made the cut to date. As I stated, that review has just been completed and we're going to have to decide going forward how we can address that situation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. General comments. Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a few short comments. Some of these comments were brought up in our committee report, but I just wanted to ask a couple of questions anyway. I wanted to ask on the $120,000 increase in grant-in-kind equal to the value of interest of non-negotiated settlement and that is due to diamond manufacturing companies. This is an issue that has come up and there has been some concern raised about how a company could negotiate a settlement for this. I know from hearing about this that the government is probably caught between a rock and hard place, as far as getting some kind of settlement to at least get back the principal on some of these loans. I'm just wondering if the Minister could tell me how the government is doing in collecting on the principal since this negotiated settlement was arrived at to defer the interest on it. How are we doing at collecting the principal?

Thank you, Mr. Delorey. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Since the agreement has been signed, the principal payments have been made. We have not had any problems in that area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Delorey.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know that there are a number of other loan guarantees out there from the government with respect to the diamond manufacturing industry. Are any of the other loan guarantees secured better than what this one was, or could we be facing the same type of deal here where we have to negotiate a settlement and have to be writing off even more money in interest payments? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Delorey. Mr. Minister.