Thank you, Mr. Bell. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister if he would commit to his visiting the possibility of moving the office to Inuvik where it rightfully belongs. Thanks a lot.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess I'm a little unclear as to whether or not the Member is referring to the minerals, oil and gas division. We've had some discussion in and around that. I know the mayor has raised that in correspondence with me. I've made the point that there's a lot to minerals, oil and gas that is outside the realm of oil and gas and much of it does a lot of work with the Geoscience Centre here in Yellowknife, and has broad responsibility for the entire territory across a number of different areas. So, no, I'm not entertaining moving the minerals, oil and gas division to Inuvik, and I'm not entertaining moving the MVPO to Inuvik. I am entertaining looking at options for more adequately resourcing oil and gas development in the entire valley, and that includes Inuvik. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was speaking more specifically to the oil and gas division of the minerals, oil and gas office. The minerals office you can keep here, but the minerals, oil and gas office I would like to see moved to the Beaufort-Delta. Now is the Minister going to look at that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think what you'd find if you looked a little bit closely at our minerals, oil and gas division is that there aren't very many people in that division and you have one director who, for instance, shares a number of different responsibilities across minerals, oil and gas. So it would be difficult to take one director and carve that person up and move half of them one way and keep another half of them in another area. I think the real answer here and the real issue is our vastly limited resources here and the potential that we see on the horizon. Do we need to create an approach and positions for the Inuvik area, as well as Norman Wells and Simpson? I believe we do and that's why I've asked the department to go back and present me with options that I can then take to Regular Members and to Cabinet and see if we can't find a way to fund those, because we are under-resourced. We are under-resourced in the Inuvik area as well, and I'm looking to deal with that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Item 6, oral questions. The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Justice, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't have the cost of operating that section of that building with me. The Member is right; the biggest savings for the closure of the operation is in human resources, but the issue is we can't shut down the whole building here in Yellowknife because we have to keep the secure custody portion open. So the magnitude of the savings that we can achieve here are not as big as the ones we can achieve by totally shutting down a facility. As I said, I don't have with me the specific numbers that the Member has requested. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me be clear; the budget has been reduced by $1.5 million. The budget that's before the House has declared $1.5 million that was originally budgeted for Dene K'onia taken out of it. So that entire amount is shown as a savings right now. So that's what we are talking about. It's not in the budget. So it's not as if we are asking for any extra money to run a facility in Yellowknife. That money has been in the budget, it stays in the budget. The savings are the elimination of that facility in Hay River when it's operated. So the savings really are $1.5 million. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What I am saying, Mr. Speaker, is that it costs $1.5 million more to operate two facilities than it does to operate one. The one that we can achieve that level of savings on is by shutting down Dene K'onia. We can't achieve that level of savings by not staffing on a partial basis the one facility we have left in Yellowknife. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm saying we're not adding anything in the budget that isn't there for the North Slave Correctional Centre. What has

happened over the last year, and it goes back to the questions that Mr. Ramsay was asking, was that we had increased costs at the North Slave centre because of overtime and other issues, increased use of casuals. So as a cost-savings measure, we reduced some of the staffing in this last year in order to try and save some money. That's one of the reasons that the facility has been used more than it would otherwise have been used in Hay River. The issue is that we have two facilities in operation right now and we don't have as many clients as we need to operate two facilities, so we're looking at shutting one of them down.