Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all let me say that I think this budget was very favourable in terms of contaminated sites. The last budget, if memory serves me, identified $500 and some odd million for cleanup of contaminated sites. It was short-term funding. I think this furthers that commitment. It is roughly ballpark. I think the same types of dollars per year, but it is a 10-year commitment, and there has been an indication that something like 60 percent of it will be spent in the North. I think that bodes very well for the NWT. I think even in the backup to the budget an indication that Port Radium, Giant Mine and DEW Line sites have all been identified. I think that is good. The funding hurdles that we have had seem to be stabilizing. I think that this can be put to good use. It is important that we stay on the federal radar and make sure that our contaminated sites make it to the top of the priority list, and it sounds like that is taking shape.

We still do have some jurisdictional issues with DIAND related to the surface cleanup at Giant. We had discussions about a framework for this cleanup, and I think it has been DIAND's position in the past that they wanted to bundle surface and underground together. We have always felt that the two shouldn't be confused and that the federal government had exclusive responsibility

and jurisdiction for the underground liabilities. So we are still in those negotiations. We are spending money, GNWT money in this current year, on surface cleanup, but we continue to have this dispute over jurisdiction. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to explore this issue of jurisdiction a bit more. There was of course at some point a transfer from federal to territorial jurisdiction for environmental responsibility. Is there difficulty at that sort of large high policy level, or are we simply in dispute about a single site, a single issue cleanup? What is this jurisdictional problem, Mr. Speaker? Thank you.

Minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will have to get more information and more detail for the Member as to the nature of the concerns and the specific hang-ups between our two governments. I do understand that with the transfer we acknowledge some responsibility for surface cleanup, but not the degree and the level to which we believe the federal government is trying to imply we have. So the dispute surrounds that. As far as specific information on the detail, I think we can discuss that further, but I will get more information.

Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Miramar Mining Corporation, I think in a deal that worked I believe to their benefit as well to workers, continues to mine ore at the Giant property. It is milled at the Con property. I am wondering if the Minister could advise if Miramar is still planning on following their mine shutdown program and will they be stopping for good the mining of ore at the Giant property later this year? Thank you.

Minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We know that underground operations have ceased at Con, the mill is still operating, and as the Member has indicated ore is being processed there from Giant. Our indications were that that would cease at the end of '04, approximately. I don't think that we have any information to make us believe that plans have changed. I did notice that gold was over $400 U.S. the other day, and I am sure that these kinds of things factor into decisions, but I don't believe we have any official communication from the company telling us that their plans have changed. Thank you.

Final supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the major, perhaps the major outstanding issue of the Giant property, Mr. Speaker, is the question of how we are going to be managing the underground vaults that are full of arsenic trioxide. The federal government has indicated that it wants to proceed with an underground freezing option, and I would like to ask the Minister from the GNWT side has this government considered that option and is it prepared to give it its full endorsement? Thank you.

Minister of RWED, Mr. Bell.

Thank you. After the issue has been studied for quite some time, and quite a bit of comprehensive discussion around this issue, we believe that given current technology, the in situ option that involves freezing is the safest and best, and most advantageous for us. So at this point we are supportive of that, but we don't believe that this is a walk away solution, and we are hopeful that future technology will allow...We are hopeful that at some point the material, the arsenic could be rendered inert or there would be some safe way to get it out of there and move it. At this point we believe that freezing is the safest option, so we are supporting it on that basis. Thank you.

Item 6, oral questions. The Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Finance. During the course of discussion and debate about our budget over the last few days, and the days that will be ahead I am sure, we keep talking about the sustainability of our programs and services given our sources of revenue and our transfer from Canada. Mr. Speaker, if the Minister could be so succinct, what is it exactly that he sees at the end of the tunnel here? Where is the light at the end of the tunnel for us? We have been grinding on Ottawa now for so long for a better deal, I am starting to lose faith in that concept. Is the answer ultimately resource revenue sharing, that being the new deal? If so, realistically how far away is it? Thank you.

Minister of Finance, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the sustainability we have moved forward is something we have to deal with as a government, and have to deal with it within our existing envelope. There are ongoing discussions and will be ongoing discussions with the federal government around the adequacies of our formula tax effort, re-establishing our base. There are also discussions about royalty revenue sharing. That is an important picture, it is an important item, but right now as our strategy is laid out that is outside of what we can

count on for funds in the Northwest Territories. We see it as definitely an asset.

If we can get a fair royal revenue sharing deal with Ottawa, then we can start dealing with our own issues and enhance our programs. Right now, operating with what we have as a budget, we don't have enough, and the numbers that are laid out now are built into our budget, built in for years forward, and we still don't have enough, we are still going to have some deficits going forward. So we have to deal with our structural problem. That is why our reduction scenarios are there for the future years of $20 million and $20 million, and our increased revenues. As we set out our fiscal strategy when we first got together in December we needed, just to get to our position of a $50 million deficit, we were counting on $10 million of our own source revenues, $10 million in reductions, and $30 million from the federal government. Through the process, the federal government hasn't put $30 million into the basket. So we were planning on coming back with a negative supp to just maintain what we put forward as a plan, another $10 million negative. With what has happened now in the formula, this $50 million break that we have means that we won't have to come back with a negative supp, we will have a balanced budget, but our ongoing structural problem remains. We still are spending more money than we have in revenues, and right now, as I stated in my budget address, if we could see revenue flowing by 2007 that would be very optimistic. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, when we talk about resource royalties comprising a part of our revenues, is the Minister saying that when we get those that those are going to be on top of what we already get from Ottawa, or isn't that just going to diminish what we get in the form of other revenue from the federal transfer? Thank you.

Minister of Finance, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct in a sense of how those royalty revenues would impact on transfers. The federal government would use that as an opportunity to drop the transfer payments, but at the same time, what we are trying to negotiate is a better deal where we would get to keep a larger portion before the federal government takes back from our transfers. So an actual incentive. Right now there is very little incentive to do any development in the Northwest Territories for, number one, any new revenues we get, we get a drop in transfer payments. That already exists today. So if we get more corporate taxes and so on we are going to drop down on our transfers. That happens today.

On the royalty revenue side, if we can negotiate a more positive deal we get to keep more of that. Today, existing in the formula, for every dollar we raise in additional revenue from the Northwest Territories we get to keep 20 cents of that dollar, 80 cents goes back to Ottawa. That is the way we lose it in the transfer. So we are hoping to increase that incentive, instead of 20 cents more where we can really start beginning to see a net revenue and result coming to the Northwest Territories where then we can really enhance the programs that we have. Right now the way it is there is no real incentive for us as a government to see big development because we get to deal with the impacts of development, we don't have the payback after development happens and companies start making profits, and we don't get to see the royalty revenues side of it. So that is the negotiations side, but optimistically we would be lucky to see that by 2007. So we have to, as I have set out in a fiscal strategy, live with what we have and try to operate and fix our structural problems around our debt situations going forward. Thank you.

Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Minister for that explanation because I believe there is a perception out there in the public in the Northwest Territories that there is, not quite the way the Minister describes it, but there is some utopia coming here to our fiscal situation as a result of these negotiations taking place on resource royalties. One of the questions that was posed to me by a constituent was with respect to the tax initiatives the Minister has proposed. They were wondering when we get this deal, and when we start to see the kind of revenue we need to sustain ourselves here in the Northwest Territories, would the Minister consider including in the legislation a sunset on those kinds of revenue raising initiatives. So that is why I am trying to put this question into context so that people can understand that it is not going to be a magic one-time bullet, it is a transitional ongoing negotiated thing. To the question of my constituent, is it possible that on some of the either reductions or revenue raising initiatives such as additional personal income tax, is it possible to build some kind of a sunset in those, just like what the Conservatives did with the GST that we are still waiting for? Thank you.

Minister of Finance, Mr. Roland.