Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Zoe.

Madam Chair, my department officials at the regional level are currently working with the municipality to find the best option that they should undertake. If that means moving the intake, then they may determine that. Currently no decision has been made, but we are currently working with the municipality. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Zoe. Anything further, Mr. Pokiak?

You can move on, Madam. My time is up now. Thanks.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. There were five seconds on the clock, and I was going to give you a chance to jump in, but that is fine. Next on the list for general comments I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the Minister and his officials and I did a Sahtu tour a couple of months ago. One of the concerns in the Sahtu related to the amount of heavy activity that went on with regard to the oil and gas exploration activities, and the communities in the Sahtu were somewhat concerned with regard to the amount of traffic that went through their communities. The infrastructure took a pounding, I guess, in terms of extra costs because of the big trucks going through their communities, tearing up the roads, and using some of the facilities in the communities. I am interested to hear from the Minister in terms of his opening comments on page 2 of 6. He talked about collaborative relationships with key partners. I believe some of those key partners would be the oil and gas, and any other large trucking industries that are being used to haul equipment up to the Sahtu for the oil and gas exploration. Has his department looked at what steps they will take in terms of ensuring that the communities, the oil and gas companies that come through our municipal boundaries, are well advised in terms of their responsibility once they hit the municipal boundaries, that they have certain cautions and responsibilities in terms of not damaging too much of the roads in our communities? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Zoe.

Thank you, Madam Chair. The Sahtu trip was very memorable. Mr. Yakeleya and I travelled through his constituency. I know the issue that he is raising. Just to follow up on the comments that he just made, we are working closely with the Department of Transportation to try to resolve that issue, and also with the municipalities that are affected by this gas and oil exploration. I understand particularly Tulita, if I recall correctly, the big trucks were going right through the centre of town and our roads were being all chewed up. That was a concern raised. So we are working with the Department of Transportation, and we also have, as I indicated earlier, two positions. One is in Fort Simpson, and one is in Inuvik to assist the communities to identify all of these impacts that the communities are having with regard to resource development. Our staff at the regional level are facilitating and assisting the municipality as to how they should undertake the concerns that are being raised, and how they could curb their concerns.

With regard to Tulita, we are working with Transportation and our staff at the regional level to see what we can do next year when the winter road comes back in. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Zoe. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I know that the Minister and his staff had some discussions with the leadership of Colville Lake. One of the things that they pushed towards is the discussion of infrastructure in terms of a community hall. The community of Colville Lake again asked if I would raise this to the Minister and his officials with regard to looking at an office building in Colville Lake. The office in Colville Lake is really small, and it is quite heavily congested with all of the activity going on because of the oil and gas stuff. Because of all the congestion, Mr. Minister, there is no space in Colville Lake. In my ignorance about Colville Lake, when I was there one time I wanted to use the men's facilities, little did I know I had to go outside in between two log buildings, so they had an outhouse facility. I thought the Minister would give some comments in regard to the Colville Lake situation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Zoe, on the outhouse.

Madam Chair, my colleague from Sahtu is correct. The leadership did raise their concerns while we were both there. I've made a commitment that I would have our staff meet with them so that they could discuss the issues further. There are a lot of things that have to take place within that municipality in terms of community planning, roads, water intake, fire protection, parking garage. This particular community that we visited, I made a commitment that we would try to do our utmost to try to bring them further ahead than they are now. We do have in our capital plan some capital items that are going to be going into Colville Lake for 2004-2005, but nevertheless I've also indicated at that time to the leadership and to my colleague that because of all the gas and oil activities happening in terms of partnership, we're going to try to facilitate through my department with the gas and oil to see how we can have the community and the resource developers in that area try to work together so that maybe we can jointly help the community with their municipal infrastructure. So we are working in that direction, as I've indicated to the leadership, and we are going to be facilitating that with their community leadership and with my regional staff and the resource developers in those areas. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Zoe. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Madam Chair. One last comment I'd like to make is that I have a letter sent to me from the Town of Norman Wells dated March 25th indicating that they would like to see the support for the request put by this department in regard to additional resources to carry out property assessments in that community. Saying that in the same breath there that I think this department could look at doing some educational work with our people in the Sahtu region in regard to our property assessments. As much as we let our people know, as much as the communities let our people know, people still have a hard time in determining their property assessments and why they're paying taxes because of the land claims. They're really mixed up; these are good issues and no fault to them that they have these concerns and questions about why they are paying taxes on their own lands. Stuff like that, I think, is just because of the land claims and the nature of the land claims that we could have some workshops in our regions to talk about property assessments and the taxation.

March 2nd, 3rd and 4th we had a regional Sahtu regional leadership meeting in Norman Wells with about 50 participants, and one of the themes that came out was infrastructure in our communities. A lot of issues in this department that Mr. Zoe is responsible for took the lead in gathering this leadership, because of all the things that happen in the Sahtu we just wanted to put the brakes on and say, listen, we have to look at some major issues such as MACA, land claims, oil and gas activity, and we need to slow down because it's been quite busy in the last year in the Sahtu.

I'd like to thank the Minister and his staff for initiating this for us and helping us get it off the ground and we'll continue on reading. Hopefully at the end of the day the people in the community will feel some level of comfort and satisfaction in terms of knowing something about the taxes in terms of their property assessments. That was several of the concerns from my communities. Some of the older people wanted to know why they were paying taxes on their own land, land that they own and all that. Just in terms of communicating that to the people in a way that's understandable to them. Mahsi, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Zoe.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I extend the same offer as I did to Mr. Villeneuve. If your communities have time, I know there are a lot of activities going on in the Sahtu and people are really busy -- even while we were there, there were a lot of activities going on that we didn't have time to really have a good two or three-hour municipal council meeting because members had to run away to different meetings and stuff like that -- but I still extend that offer as I did to Mr. Villeneuve. If your communities want to have a session on how we do assessments, and I can also bring in people from Finance to explain how this whole taxation works in non-tax-based communities, we're willing to offer that type of consultation with your communities.

On the other note, Madam Chair, I'm glad that the Member for Sahtu received a letter from one of his communities, particularly Norman Wells. Norman Wells does understand the whole concept of what we do in terms of property tax assessment and collecting tax because it does benefit them. If you have current assessments up to date, then you may increase your revenue for your own municipality and I'm glad that the Town of Norman Wells has suggested to you to support my recommendation in my budget. Thank Norman Wells for doing that on behalf of Municipal and Community Affairs. I think other municipalities do understand the need for the request being made by my department for these three positions that are currently in my budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Zoe. We're considering the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs under general comments. I have Mr. Hawkins on the list, but Ms. Lee hasn't spoken yet, so I will go to Ms. Lee first. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't have a long general comment. I do have a question on the Minister's opening remarks and it has to do with something that is not there. I noticed the absence of any reference to the new sports governing council. I'd like to ask the Minister if this would be an indication that he has shelved the whole plan and, if so, I would like to know. Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Zoe.

Madam Chair, that initiative that the honourable Member is referring to is not shelved. We're still working on it and it will be coming forward at a later date. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Zoe. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Members have had a chance to get a briefing from the Minister not too long ago about his work in that area. I do believe the Minister made a commitment to meet with the head of Sport North

at the time. I'd like to know from the Minister whether he's had that meeting with the head of Sport North and if he could let me know as to whether or not he was able to address the concerns that the head of Sport North has on this governing council. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Zoe.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I did meet with the president of Sport North, Mr. Abe Theil. In my meeting with him there were no concerns raised pertaining to the sports council. He raised different issues with me when I met him, but on the issue of the sports council that the Member is referring to, no concerns were raised with me when I met with him. Thank you.