Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have been working, in conjunction with the NWT Seniors' Society, and have been able to fund them through a grant in order to allow them to look at housing issues. Also, in regard to their partnership, there are other seniors' initiatives that are taking place, and I think that as a government we have to ensure that we include our seniors by way of consultation. We conduct annual meetings or even meet with the elders' groups and societies in a lot of our communities where we have elders' counsels and whatnot. I think that it is crucial that we do develop a paper that outlines seniors' programs, but also ensures them that they are aware of the changes that are taking place.

Working with the Department of Health and Social Services, the Minister responsible for Seniors, and also working with the NWT Seniors' Society, we are hoping to be able to find solutions to these problems for seniors. Thank You.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Speaker, in light of the discussions that we are having this afternoon, I want to ask the Minister responsible for the petroleum products division, in terms of emergency needs...This has to do with the increase of fuel prices in the small communities. We are getting mixed messages from our communities.

Even Bern Brown from Colville Lake wrote a letter to me on his old typewriter, saying, why the increase? I guess the issue here is, what forms of communication is the Minister giving to the communities? Because of the mixed messages of resupply, winter barge, winter road resupply and barge supply, and the increase will be here, the increase will be there, what is the message that the department is going to be giving, once and for all, to the communities on this high increase of fuel in our communities this winter?

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Public Works and Services, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the area of petroleum products, notification was sent out to Members, and notification was given out to communities, that an increase was coming effective April 1st. That increase is a result of two things. First, we have gone to a full cost recovery model for pricing of products in communities. That means that the cost of delivering that product to a community is what is going to be charged at that community going forward. In the past, there was a different model used where some communities that had larger volume sales were offsetting the higher costs in the smaller communities. That is no longer happening. We are going with full cost recovery in every community. Secondly, the resupply situation that has happened over the summer has added a further increased cost to the product itself. That is also being reflected in this recent change. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The full cost recovery...I am having a hard time here, Mr. Speaker in terms of the prices that are going to be charged in these small, isolated communities. Wekweeti is $1.56; Nahanni Butte is $1.33; Colville Lake is $1.50; and Paulatuk is $1.50. In terms of helping out the small communities in their traditional lifestyle, it is going to be pretty tough for these people who live in this type of a situation. Can the Minister help me out here by explaining full cost recovery, and what type of support assistance would these people with low income receive in terms of having a decent living? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, from the petroleum products division itself we

are not providing any subsidies to individuals out there. There are a number of other programs within other departments that do help out people in the North. One is the seniors' fuel subsidy; another, through income support, possibly, would be a hardship allowance. Again, that is income tested.

What we have done in the petroleum products division is to try to offset the increased cost of home heating oil. Within our stabilization fund, there was enough funding there to lower the price or keep the price from going up further by 10 cents a litre on home heating oil. That is one of the things that we have done, is taken some of that subsidy to lower what the impact would have been had we not applied that 10 cent reduction to home heating oil. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask the Minister, how is this type of information, through the communities down the valley, being communicated? Again, you said the notification went out to the MLAs, to the communities; how is that being...Because of the different mixed messages that the communities are receiving, I'm not too sure in how plain a language you could put it, Mr. Minister, in letting the communities know. Can the people in Colville Lake know that $1.50 will now stay until next year, or is there going to be an increase in the heating fuel or the gasoline fuel? They weren't notified when the prices were increased, and they were in shock, actually. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we can work on doing an information package that we can put out there. We can possibly look at what immediate ways we can get it out to the people, whether it is flyers or something like that. I think we have to, again, recognize the cost of getting information out there. I think we can look at trying to get a package out there that is fairly straightforward as to what the impacts are. The difference would be, now that we have changed the full cost recovery model where we are paying for the basic prices of product, the taxes that are applied to the federal government and ourselves and the commission cost -- the cost of having the fuel delivered in the community by a contractor -- there are basic parameters already there. The only change that will happen now is the actual cost of the product and transportation to the community. The rest will stay relatively stable. That is a thing that will happen. That will happen in the communities where resupply happens in the summer. That will be shortly after resupply happens. An adjustment will happen at that point. After winter resupply, again, adjustments will be made shortly after that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is the issue here in terms of the price increase in the smaller communities that the Minister has indicated. I hope he sees some communication in advance going out to the small communities of what they are to expect in terms of proper planning, in terms of looking at different options, in terms of paying for the high cost of fuel. Mr. Speaker, in light of the amount of gas we have in the Northwest Territories, it is really hard to see that this type of increase can come down in the Northwest Territories. Can the Minister advise the House that this type of information would also be done in the North Slavey language, or any other language that is primarily an aboriginal language? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we can look at doing some information packages that would be done in the aboriginal language of the regions. Again, we are going to rely on a fair bit of support through community delivery agencies. We have passed information out there about the change. Obviously, that comes up short. We will look at what package we can put together. I am willing to discuss with Members what might be the best move in getting that information out, and work on it from that end of it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to take this opportunity to ask questions on housing, as well. I think it is good that we are doing this today because housing was, bar none, the number one issue we heard about in our pre-budget consultation. When we are all aware of the housing crisis, it is really important that we spend every penny we have in the housing budget as much as possible. We find here now that the corporation is in a little bit of a crisis mode. It is going through a review of the mandate which we have not seen yet. It has had $30 million of its budget being transferred to ECE. That is a huge hole in its mandate without replacing it with any other kind of project other than this thing called the Novel project, Mr. Speaker. I believe -- and I am an optimist -- the pipeline will go ahead. My nightmare is that, when they come and go, we are going to have 1,400 trailers scattered all over the Territories that nobody wants. That is my big nightmare.

Mr. Speaker, I think we are reasonable to think this because the corporation has not done such a great job on placing 40 trailers. Imagine what they could do with 1,400. Mr. Speaker, there have not been any kinds of documents or anything, discussion papers or anything, a cost benefit analysis. Does the Minister have any plan on letting any kind of information out to the public so the public can judge for themselves what a great deal this is? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, Mr. Krutko.

Mr. Speaker, this idea has been presented through our business plan process. We have talked to committee. We basically have offered tours for committee members to see the facility for themselves. It is not as if no one has been involved in this. I think it is important to realize that this is on the basis that we have a project. Without a project, this idea will not go anywhere. I think that we have to realize that, without a pipeline, this is not...Again, we are in the process of negotiations. This is part of the government's social impact benefits that we are hoping to derive from the pipeline that is presently under those negotiations. I have been presenting this to the federal Minister, looking at the federal monies that are coming forward. Because this project is so far in the future, we cannot commit to making any capital expenditures until we realize that the project is up and running, the units will be occupied for a number of years during construction, and then where we go after that.

There has been involvement from Cabinet colleagues and the Department of Finance. The federal government is aware of this. Again, we are depending on a lot of these dollars that we are talking about coming by way of the federal government initiatives. In the meantime, Mr. Speaker, we are aware that we have some challenges today. We have put proposals to the federal government looking at the $1.6 billion to deal with funding for the next three years. It is not as if we have been doing nothing. We are looking at that by way of getting federal funding. We are looking at somewhere in the range of about $25 million a year with matching funding. Hopefully, we will be able to put 100 units a year on the ground for the next three years. That is the objective we are trying to meet. We are working this through.

Mr. Speaker, those are some of the areas we covered. Again, a lot of these decisions - you talk about Novel - are all based on there being a pipeline. This is the concept that they will use to provide these workforce camps for the pipeline.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have to tell you that this proposal was received without a lot of...It was not very well received, let me just say. There were just lots of questions that the Minister has not been able to answer at the committee level.

Instead of providing the information that Members need to make good sound judgment about such a mega project, he has taken the initiative to invite anybody who wants to come and see this trailer in Calgary. I have to tell you, Mr. Speaker, there are some really nice trailers in my riding. I know what a trailer looks like. I don't need to go all the way to Calgary to see what it is going to look like. We are talking about this corporation spending the equivalent to two years' budget for the entire corporation for 1,400 trailers so that the old companies could use it and ATCO could benefit from it, and he hasn't done a cost benefit analysis. I want to know from the Minister when any of us would see some kind of a document that gives us the goods. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Krutko.