I appreciate the discussion, Mr. Chairman. I won't dwell on it, but along with these, as the Minister has indicated, there are receivers, there are lawyers, there are accountants, there are auditors, there are all sorts of services that are brought in. Could the Minister give us some idea of what we're spending and what we have had to spend simply on those fees and services that were required as part of this receiver process? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the fees we had to deal with on this and we talk about valuator fees around $8,000; the legal fees incurred to March 31, 2005, were approximately $240,000, a few hundred dollars off of that; receiver fees incurred to April 22, 2005, were in the area of $1.5 million; and then estimated receiver legal fees to June 20th we are estimating another $298,000; and then trustee and bankruptcy fees to March 31st, another $14,500. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Roughly $2 million in fees out of a total $10 million exposure. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman, how much of that $2 million in fees is staying with northern-based companies; you know, receivers or auditors? Can we at least say that we are retaining some of this here? Hopefully most if not all of it, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the receiver was Deloitte and Touche who does business in the North but does not have its operations here in the North, and their legal people that they used for some of this work, as well, are companies that are not headquartered here or stationed here. They do work in the North, but the majority, if not all this money, has gone to those companies that are outside the Territories.

As well, once you go to the courts and ask for a receiver and one is appointed, it is done. When we took this action, it was fairly new to us as the Government of the Northwest Territories. We had to make sure we had companies that could definitely benefit us. Ultimately we could have taken the whole loss and just wrapped up the operations and had no further operations out there. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. General comments on Supplementary Appropriation, No. 4. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't know if it's going to be a good question, a bad question or a dumb question, but I am going to ask it anyway, Mr. Chairman. It is in regard to the remediation project at the Giant Mine. The question I have is, is there any further liability that we foresee in the future for more expenditures? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the way this deal has been put forward and agreed to is the amount we are entering into this agreement here is capping the GNWT's liability. The federal government has much more in the area of coming up with their share of the costs of doing remediation there. This is our portion that is over. The drawdown will happen over 10 years, but because the agreement was signed in 2004-05, we have to account in that year the full liability, but over a 10-year period will be drawn down as the site work and service area is done. The federal government will be on the hook for a much larger portion of over $200 million of that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To return briefly, Mr. Chairman, to the diamond portion of this. The Minister just explained that regrettably it seems the majority if not all of these fees are going to non-resident, non-registered businesses that aren't based here. That is just really a shame. Even when things go wrong, you can't keep some of this money with our own professionals.

I guess what I'm seeing here, Mr. Chairman, certainly going into some avenues of business carries risk, but that, depending on how we handle it, can be extremely expensive. Receivership is a difficult and expensive way to go and I guess if I've learned something from this, it is to be doubly watchful of this kind of situation and knowing what the consequences could be when it comes along.

I certainly look though to an ongoing up-side on this, and that is that I know there are a number of jobs that continued as a result of keeping that factory going. We have certainly protected, if not enhanced, the Yellowknife and the NWT's position in the Canadian diamond manufacturing industry. It will be a much larger Canadian industry, Mr. Chairman, so there is something, as I say, on the up-side to be said for that. I wish the new owners and their employees every success in this.

I will close it off with one question to the Minister and that is how many employees are estimated to have been able to continue working because of this situation? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I believe there were 22 or 23 employees; it's one of those numbers. Twenty-two were employed there and as the new owners have taken over, I don't have the latest information if they have added or changed any of that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. We have got nobody on the list for general comments. Does committee agree that we proceed to the detail?

Agreed. I will draw your attention to tab two in the grey binders, committee. I will give you a second to get there. We will come back to the bill itself, Bill 2, Supplementary Appropriation Act, 2004-2005. We will start on page 5, that is the operations expenditures. If we can go to page 5. Detail. Is committee prepared to go into detail?

Agreed. Executive, operations expenditures, Financial Management Board Secretariat, not previously authorized, budgeting and evaluation $620,000.

Agreed. Total for Financial Management Board Secretariat, $620,000.

Total department, $620,000.