Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Bell.

I can confirm that the only position in place is the communications planning specialist. Mr. Menicoche has met that person, I believe, as he has indicated on the road when we were in Norman Wells. That was I think her first official conference. The other six positions, we have yet to fill. They are at various stages, but I can tell you that at this point no offers have

been made on the other six positions I don't believe. I'd also like to assure the Members that there are staffing appeal mechanisms in place. So if somebody feels they were wrongfully overlooked and are indeed qualified, they can certainly kick into place a staffing appeal and we'll follow that through its course. So I want to give the Member that assurance as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you.

Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I wanted to talk about the Mackenzie Valley pipeline office for a brief minute. It goes back to last year and I'm still trying to make a correlation between the $825,000 that appeared in a supplementary that came before the House, I believe it was in June of last year. It was supposedly dedicated to salaries to staff this new office. From the information that we've received from the department to date, I don't really see that $825,000 being dedicated to staffing and a lot of it went to grants, contributions and the like. I'm just wondering, maybe we could ask the Minister for an accurate breakdown of where the $825,000 went because today it's almost March and we still don't have the pipeline office open, yet we've spent that $825,000. We don't even have any staff. I think we're owed some kind of explanation as to where that $825,000 went. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I can certainly provide the detail to the Member and to committee. We go back to the original submission in the supplementary appropriation for, as the Member said, I believe it was $800,000 plus dollars, take the Member through the original intent as to what that would be made up of in terms of contributions and staffing and then reconcile that with our year-end actuals as they become year-end actuals as of March 31st.

I think an important thing to keep in mind is that if we hadn't acted on the supplementary and moved forward, we would only be now talking about funding of the initiatives under this office, and wouldn't have been able to make many of the contributions that we've already made. We have had staff who have been in place in Yellowknife waiting to transition to those positions to Hay River. So I don't want to give the Member the impression that nothing's been happening and we're waiting until April 1st until we start moving forward with these initiatives. That, in fact, is false.

There's been a lot of work underway and I think Members who are sitting on the Joint Cabinet/AOC Pipeline Planning Committee would recognize that and would recognize, for instance, the administrative effort it takes to coordinate a meeting like the one we had in Norman Wells and would know that the money we spent on the Inuvik meeting, joint hosting with MACA, was a contribution that came from some of that $820,000. I believe that was a very worthwhile initiative. So I can provide the detail of that initial submission and what the proposed contribution to salary breakdown has been, and then as of March 31st we'll be able to reconcile the actuals and can provide committee that information. Maybe let me ask the Member if that would suffice. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Ramsay.

Yes, thank you, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister for that. I know some information on the $825,000 was provided to the Governance and Economic Development committee, but I don't think that goes far enough. I think what we need is more of a reconciliation on where the funding went. From strictly a reporting sense, the supplementary was approved for what we thought were wages or salaries to start up this new pipeline office, but there's no evidence of that. I mean, the money has basically been eaten up by grants and contributions, but it didn't show up in last year's budget and it's nowhere in this year's budget. From a reporting standpoint, where or how are we going to show where this $825,000 was spent? How is the public going to know how it was spent? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I can take the Member through the $850,000 proposed breakdown as to what would have been intended in terms of contributions, but of course I can't give the Member the actuals until the year end is completed. So I'm not sure exactly how effective my best guess would be at something like that. Would that help if I took the Member through the submission and what the $850,000 had been proposed for?

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. No, I know the Minister could go through that for us now, but perhaps he could take it with him and provide that type of detail at a later date. I don't know that we need it right now. If he has it right now, he could read it in for the record as to where the $850,000 went.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Bell.

Thank you. I'll take that and get it back for the Member and we'll certainly provide that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Anything further, Mr. Ramsay? We're on page 11-19, strategic initiatives, operations expenditure summary, $4.730 million. I have Ms. Lee and then Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Could I just ask questions under the Mackenzie Valley pipeline office under strategic initiatives, whether any of this money will be for individuals and not governments? I appreciate that the Minister's statement today and in other places the focus seems to be on funding governments and other groups to get involved, but I really want to know if there's any money for the individuals or small groups, groups that cannot access funds in other areas, if there's any money for them to help them get involved in this process and register their opinions and just give them the capacity to speak on this issue. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am looking for something like that. I listened with attention and read the statement that the Minister read this morning, which I understand is in Committee of the Whole for discussion some time down the road, so I'm not going to go too much into that. But I can tell you that I have been consciously watching to see who is going to answer to those people who are out there who want to have a say in this process and who feel that their respective governments are not speaking for them or they just want to speak for themselves.

I think it's an issue that Mr. Braden brought up earlier this morning in question period and is something that's common knowledge out there. Even the federal government and their funding mechanisms for anybody who wants to intervene in this very expensive process is completely inadequate. I don't think it's unreasonable for people out there to ask this government to do their part in facilitating and affording them an opportunity to speak in this very important development issue.

So far, everything I've seen is this government funding governments, whether they be aboriginal governments or regional governments or tax-based governments. That's okay, there's room for that, but I tell you there are lots of individuals out there and we need to connect with them. The only opportunity I've seen, the only forum I've seen for them to speak to is The Current on CBC Radio the other day, and that was for an hour.

Surely if this is going to succeed, I think there is a huge onus on this government as well as the federal government on creating an opportunity for people to speak, and the people whose first language is not English to be able to speak through interpreters. We need to have a community dialogue about what this development means to us. It can't just be government-to-government-to-government discussions along with big businesses. Somebody has to think about how the individuals are going to play a role in this and I look for leadership from this Minister to come up with that plan, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A number of questions there and I have a better understanding of the contribution funding the Member is referring to.

Under the terms of this project, it's been agreed that the federal government would provide participant program funding that's being administered by the Northern Gas Project Secretariat and the Canadian Environmental Assessment Agency. That is essentially to allow for review and comment on the draft terms of reference for the EIS, the Environmental Impact Settlement. There have been monies that were released in June 2004 that also enables people to participate in technical conferences, provide technical analysis of the EIS, and in fact to participate in the joint panel review public hearings. There are a number of phases of funding to roll out, but essentially the eligibility is for individuals, non-profits, aboriginal and public governments with an interest in the proposed Mackenzie gas project. A wide range of people would be able to apply for this funding.

I would certainly concur with the Member that I've heard from a number of communities that this funding has been inadequate and not enough to go around. That's a message we're sending to the federal government as well. I would agree with the Member that there certainly is a need to conduct the kind of community dialogue that I believe we started in Inuvik with community leaders, and the social envelope Ministers will follow up with their own forum in a number of communities.

That's where we've chosen to focus our limited resources as opposed to providing individuals with participant funding that's been left to the federal government. I think it's important that we keep in mind pre-devolution and that it will be the federal government, under our current status quo arrangement, that gets the resource revenues from this project. We do believe that the federal government has a strong role to play here and, in fact, a responsibility and a mandate to ensure that people can adequately intervene in the process. We intend to hold them to that support. Thank you.