We can certainly have those discussions, but there's no doubt in my mind and I believe this government has been very clear that we believe that NWT gas should be a Canadian priority. We think it is a Canadian priority. We think this project is of a much more realistic scope than some of the Alaskan gas. No doubt at some point both of these projects will be developed. The demand in the lower 48 and the continental energy strategy I think envisions both projects. I think it's more realistic that the NWT project will come on stream first. Certainly we can have some discussions with the Producers Group to make sure that their minds haven't been changed. I haven't seen the recent interview that the Member speaks to, but the last time I did have a chance to sit down with the Producers Group they were still firmly behind this project and believe that it will go forward. Thank you.

Item 6, oral questions. Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Minister of Finance, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, each department goes through the exercise of building their budgets. Within each director position and so on there would be forms for substantiation requesting dollars for areas of travel or other budget areas. So each department would build their budget up and require some travel and go forward on that basis. Now, they'd have to substantiate what they're going to spend their dollars on and how much they've highlighted for specifically travel in certain areas.

Now, Mr. Speaker, we should be clear that the figures that were used by the Member of the $22 million figure also includes that of medical travel and other things that we consider as non-discretionary. I believe the discretionary amount of travel adjusted for 2002-2003 would be in the area of $13 million. Thank you.

Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Given the answer of the Minister, I would suggest that the government has a lot of room to look at their travel budget and tighten it up a little. Mr. Speaker, I do accept that there are some adjustments that could be made in these figures, but I do not believe this figure includes medical travel because under Health and Social Services it's only allocated for $1.1 million and I think there's a lot higher medical travel there.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to know whether or not employees are required to write any kind of report or indication as to where they travelled, what they did while they were there and what sort of results were produced from these travels. Thank you.

Minister of Finance, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the reporting required for each department's travel would be under the responsibility of each Minister and how they handle their department and the reporting requirements that happen there. As well, a lot of the travel that's in there is to do with either the health boards or education boards and how we go about that. I agree with the Member that as a government we need to look at our travel budget situation. That is why we sent out the initial message that 25 percent of this is targeted for reduction. Each department has gone through and implemented that. We're going to take the advice of Members who have said look at that line more critically and see what else we can do. We will aim at doing that as we go through the budget process, especially for the business plan process that's coming up in the spring. Thank you.

Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I should also state that I do understand that our employees need to travel to a certain extent. We like to see them in communities and I know a lot of them are required to travel to do their job. But when we think of the fact that we are trying to introduce legislation that would increase taxes to raise $1 million, we shudder at the thought of raising taxes to collect $1 million. When you see a travel budget of $22 million you have to think about what your priorities are.

Mr. Speaker, I have a question about the way the government keeps track of the travel budget. As the Minister indicated, under RWED where there's $10 million allocated that was spent for travel last year, $7.5 million of that is for fire suppression and fire suppression travel requirements. Now I'm wondering, why are things like that included in the travel budget when there's already a different category or division for fire suppression? Why are you keeping your books this way? Can it be done any better? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Finance, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we can definitely look at how we account for this, but the specific area was in travel so anything to do with transportation was included. Those contracts included are to do with the aircraft that are used in that area. I believe those amounts were backed out to show that was more of a non-discretionary item. It was something that's required of the contract; also a number of Justice trips are pulled off because they're required for court duty. We will look at how we account for that, but to come up with an accurate number, anything to do with transportation...The case specifically raised by the Member was to do with the aircraft transportation to fulfill that department's commitment. Thank you.

Final supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Could the Minister provide this House with the breakdown on how many people travelled to where? Maybe not to every community, but at least break down by north of 60, north to south and international travel for every department travel budget. Could the Minister provide that within the time of our budget debate? Thank you.

Minister of Finance, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will endeavour to pull those numbers together. I will go to each of the Ministers and ask them to pull that from their departments and try to have something for this House. Thank you.

Item 6, oral questions. Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would just like to follow up on last week's enquiry to the Premier with

reference to the final report of the Special Joint Committee on Non-Tax-Based Community Affairs, and the report was labelled, "Strengthening GNWT Support to Smaller Communities." What is being done by our government in the 15th Assembly to implement some of the recommendations of the report?

Mr. Premier.

Mr. Speaker, we are very much aware of that report that was done and, in fact, it's one of the cornerstones that was used as we pulled our budget together. So, Mr. Speaker, to give a lot of detail on what each department is doing, I would have to ask the other departments to pull information together and provide that detail. I don't have it in front of me. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Being a representative of many small communities, this report is of special interest to me, especially when the report talks about looking at multi-year funding for the smaller communities so they don't have to spend all their time doing annual funding proposals; the proposals are the same year after year.

Another issue raised in the report is when government visits these communities -- it's still happening today; one department shows up at 11:00 a.m. to be followed by another department at 2:00 p.m. -- there is still no coordination happening at the community level; it still looks like our government is not coordinated. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Premier if there is some coordinated effort to implement any of these recommendations from this report.

Mr. Premier.