Thank you. Sergeant-at-Arms, please escort in the witnesses.

For the record, Mr. Minister, would you please introduce your witness?

Mr. Chairman, with me today is Lew Voytilla, secretary to the FMB.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. General comments. First on the list is Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I don't have general comments on the opening statement, but I do have some questions on the proposed expenditure to prepare for the Mackenzie gas project of $1.3 million for the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs and $378,000 for the Department of Health and Social Services. Certainly this is something that many individuals and groups across the Territories have been asking for the government to do. I know the government has been trying to get the federal government to perhaps take over a bigger burden of it and the GNWT has been left with no choice but to put some money in there. So it is certainly a good thing, but as I sit here I have hardly any detail about where this money is going to go. I understand the time frame for the workshops that the Department of Health and Social Services are planning on are quite short. Perhaps even the end of June might be the targeted completion date. Can the Minister give us any information, perhaps a framework or terms of reference? How does the government see this thing rolled out?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, one part of the ask that we put forward in the supplementary appropriation belongs to the Department of Health and Social Services. The other part belongs to Municipal and Community Affairs. The ask from the Department of Health and Social Services for the conference is $378,000. Indeed, the conferences are to be held during the month of June in Norman Wells, Inuvik and Fort Simpson. I guess the report will be brought back to the Minister at that point. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. Lee.

I am sorry, I didn't catch all that. Does the Minister have the dates of when this will happen, other than it will happen in June? It is June 1st.

Thank you. I heard him say sometime in June, but can he be more specific in terms of days? Mr. Minister. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Health and Social Services has that information available. He can probably better respond to that.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I would just like to put out, as well, that Health and Social Services is acting in this capacity as sort of the current chair of the social envelope Ministers meeting or committee which includes Education, Culture and Employment and Housing and Justice, as well. This is a collaborative effort to get direct feedback and recommendations from the impacted communities on the impending Mackenzie gas pipeline.

There is a workshop that was held earlier this week; yesterday, Monday and Tuesday, I believe, in Fort Simpson. There is one next week in Inuvik and then in the third week in June in Norman Wells, after which we will be collating all the recommendations and bring that back to the committee of Ministers for review and they will be sharing that information as well with, of course, the members of the Social Programs committee. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Ms. Lee.

Mr. Chairman, the general public out there have already heard about this and they are inquiring of us about details. How are the people who might want to take part in this able to find out this information? It is not an unlimited amount of money. It is a good chunk of money, but not money that could be spread thin and wide and forever. Could the Minister indicate as to what he can tell the NGOs or parties and people who might be interested in taking part in this and what they should be doing to get involved in that? Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the funding has been broken down into the different regions and the number of delegates from those communities. For example, Deh Cho, Fort Simpson, four delegates from the 13 communities and GNWT staff. Norman Wells, again four delegates from the 11 communities and staff as well as the Beaufort-Delta. It has been developed with a budget around how many people they are going to get from the different communities and the staff there and the cost for travel, accommodation and facilitator fees. It has been broken down for that. For actual information, they expect to have about 124 delegates for communications and we could probably go to the Minister of Health and Social Services for that specific information. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have been in communication with the communities, the community leadership, working with them to pick delegates and to arrange all the logistics, as Minister Roland has covered off for the most part. We have facilitators in place for the three conferences and we have been working fast and hard to make sure that we get this done right. We have been using basically the same template as was used by Municipal and Community Affairs when they had a workshop in Inuvik a number of months ago to try to achieve the same positive results. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Ms. Lee.

Could I ask the Minister who is in charge of picking delegates in Yellowknife? Where would the NGOs or persons who might want to participate in this program or in this workshop from Yellowknife go in Yellowknife to find out whether they could be picked as delegates or not?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Miltenberger.

Mr. Chairman, I'm not sure to attend one of the workshops in Norman Wells, Inuvik or Simpson. Is that what the Member is asking?

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member is asking in particular to Yellowknife delegates. Thank you. Ms. Lee.