That's it for now. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to take this opportunity just to ascertain some points from my riding, and it's in the context of paragraph two on page 11-18 and also it has some bearing on investment economic analysis on page 11-20. I have already spoken briefly with the Minister earlier on economic freedom and prosperity, and taking a look at some of the methods that we should try to include at some point in the future, and not only providing economic analysis and also expert advice, but also to look at ways that we could try to facilitate some economic growth. Just quickly for the interest of myself and others, we seem to be less economic free and less prosperous because Canadian provinces have higher government spending and higher taxes and less flexible labour markets than our southern counterparts. I think that really characterizes some of the difficulties we have in the NWT to promote our economic and business development scenarios. I want to ask the Minister if he's prepared to look at that as a contributing factor, and also how we should help facilitate a different approach to economic and business development and prosperity. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Allen. Mr. Bell.

Thank you. I think we have embarked on what I consider to be a good process, and I'm optimistic that that will be a useful process. I think it's a matter of getting the federal government's attention to some of our unique challenges and needs. Obviously it's very important. We're talking about flexibility, we're talking about tax burden; all of these things can provide an economic stimulus. We've had a lot of discussion lately about the need to have a competitive tax regime that allows people to keep the most money possible in their pockets so that they have more money available for developing their economic opportunities and ideas. Also, as the Member has already indicated to me, we need to make sure that every available banking tool is at our disposal so that people don't have to go outside the Territories for these services, so that they can access them right here at home. I know the problem, and the challenge is further exacerbated in the smallest communities, not so much probably in Yellowknife and the regional centres. That's a challenge that we have to find a way to meet head on. We do have our BCC which is a lender of last resort and takes higher risk, but there certainly is a need to make sure we have a full gambit of banking programs and of lending programs, and whether that will all be consolidated with the auspices of the BDIC or not, or whether there will be sort of pieces of other programming attached to that I think is some good discussion that we're really in the preliminary stage here. But I hear the Member's concerns and I hear the Member cautioning us to make sure that we use all the tools in the toolbox and make sure that we provide maximum flexibility to our residents. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One last point for the evening with respect to the activity summary, and of course the attached cost to that. This has been an interesting and intriguing point, and I want to reiterate it in the fact that many of our decisions are based on the Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. I'm trying to assimilate that into the minerals, oil and gas participates in developing...(inaudible)...or transfer of provincial-type responsibilities from...(inaudible)...with respect to oil and gas and mineral resources. With respect to that comment, I would like to ask the Minister if this is part of this joint committee on oil and gas, that would be one of the mandates established under that joint committee. He may want to respond on behalf of the government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Allen. Mr. Bell.

I think absolutely there has to be some relationship to the devolution file. I don't think you can dissect these issues and not have the clear linkages between them. But what I'm proposing at this point, and we've had some discussion about this at Cabinet, we are hoping to come back to committee with sort of a proposed terms of reference to get the feedback of the committee. I think at that point when we're establishing the mandate of the committee, it will be important to have these kinds of thoughts and ideas come forward from AOC so that we make sure that...The challenge here is to have it as comprehensive and wide reaching as possible, but not to let it get too broad and so vague that we aren't able to achieve some concrete objectives.

So we will have to sit down and I will take the Member's advice on that, but we will have to sit down and talk about what the most effective mandate possible would be within our area of responsibility. Clearly there will be some overlap here and some discussion about the current regime under the federal government control and future regime when we strive to have control and when there are these provincial-type responsibilities that have been transferred to us. Obviously we recognize we also have to target other groups and other federal departments. The Department of Industry Canada is an obvious one. We can't simply look at DIAND. I think the Member has already made this point. We need to look beyond that. We need to look at all the other mechanisms and agencies that play a role. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Allen.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just want to raise this again in the context of the motion defeated earlier with regard to the loan guarantees. I am wondering if NWT Business Credit Corporation has the legislative mandate to...(inaudible)...and it goes into making a number of loans and guarantees. Would it not be more appropriate from now on to suggest that the government put the loan guarantee program into the BCC? That is my final question to the Minister this evening. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Allen. Mr. Minister, did you care to comment?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With reference to our earlier discussion, the nature of those loan guarantees through FMBS were that they were of a higher magnitude and under our current arrangement, FMBS then has control of guarantees that are more significant. We do, under the BCC though, have a program that looks at loan guarantees for much smaller amounts. I think this is again another discussion that we need to have as we are creating this BDIC. We need to talk about where it makes the most sense to have loan

guarantees. This department will be looking for support from committee in that discussion and some advice on where they think these things should best be housed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Page 11-19, total operations expense, $36.558 million.

Page 11-21, resource management and economic development, grants and contributions, grants, total grants, $652,000.

Contributions go on for a few pages, 11-22, 11-23 and 11-24 for a total contribution amount, total grants and contributions, $10.527 million.

Total grants and contributions, $11.179 million.

Page 11-26, forest management, operations expense, total operations expense, $30.161 million. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have the same question on other expenses.

Mr. Minister.