Mr. Speaker, as I said, I haven't had an opportunity to get together with the regional directors yet, but I want to do that. I don't know if it is a question of hiring additional staff or whether it is a question of reassigning people. As I said, I want communities to have more autonomy rather than us looking over their shoulder all the time. But if we need somebody to do that kind of monitoring on a community-by-community basis, on a regular basis, and that is the feeling from the people who deliver these programs and from the local leaders, then I am prepared to figure out how we can reorganize to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Short supplementary, Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think it is important that we act as a big brother here. We do

provide the funding. I think it is really important that we do ensure that we are looking over the shoulders of these autonomous bodies that we empower with a lot of public dollars to provide programs and services for the very fact that when we don't look over their shoulder, most of them are doomed for failure. It happens all the time in every community. You get set up and, in two years' time, the government is moving in to take over because they haven't done any monitoring or assessing and following up on making sure that they are on the right path. How are we going to make a positive change to ensure that we don't set up these autonomous bodies in communities for failure in the future?

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, one of the views I have on this is that housing is something that can be, and historically has been, delivered at the community level. We became involved and in some ways maybe direct too much from headquarters to the point where people just give up and they say, well, we don't really care because it is not our responsibility. I want to talk to the leaders about them taking more responsibility so that they own the houses and the challenges that are there. I believe there are good leaders in every community who can do that as long as they take ownership of the program. As long as they believe they are just delivering it for us and it is not theirs, then they are going to spend their time on things that are of more immediate concern to them. I believe, Mr. Speaker, that we need to work with the local leaders who are very confident to be able to take on more management of their own issues. I think housing is very much a community-based issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Very short supplementary, Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess the point I am just trying to drive home, and I agree with the Minister, taking ownership is great at the community level. But also I just want to stress the need for, along with taking ownership, you have to be able to take some direction. That direction should come from this government when they are devolving responsibilities to the community level, because a lot of these communities don't have the capacity to lead their own people to go on the right path. Sometimes they sway. Although they do have the good intentions of going down the right path, they tend to sway a bit. That swaying is what I want to avoid in the future. How can we make sure that we are always on top and overlooking the direction that a particular body like an LHO is going to ensure that they are doing it the way it should be done? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have very experienced, capable technical people in our headquarters. In the regions, we have good experienced journeymen. We have good experienced policy people and so on. Those people should be our resource to the local leaders. They should not be directing and telling them how to put a window in and how to build a house unless it is something else new and innovative. Mr. Speaker, as much as possible, I want to try to switch that role over so we are a resource to the local leaders as they meet their housing needs. Mr. Speaker, I believe in doing it that way, we are going to end up with much better houses and much better maintenance of houses. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a constituent brought forward an issue to me of grave concern in the sense of fairness. Right now, we have a situation where the Yellowknife Airport has a parking ticket machine. Their concern was that nowhere else in the Northwest Territories has a parking machine. They are very concerned about the fact that why does Yellowknife have to unfairly pay for day parking when other areas in the Territories don't. There is no parking machine in Fort Simpson, Hay River. I can go on endlessly, but the fact is, at the very least, why isn't day parking completely fair, Mr. Speaker? So my question to the Minister of Transportation is, is the Minister aware of that fact? What is he doing about this in a fair and equitable way? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. With respect to the parking at the Yellowknife Airport, Yellowknife is our capital. It has the largest population base, Mr. Speaker. If we allow the public to park there all the time, we will have absolutely no room for anybody to do any type of parking there, Mr. Speaker. This is one of the reasons that paid-for-parking was implemented. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, maybe the Minister had some cotton balls in his ears while I was asking my question, so I will ask him to listen very closely. What is the area of fairness? Can the Minister speak to the area of fairness why Yellowknifers can't go to the airport when they pick up loved ones or whatever the case for day parking? Why can't that be free just like anywhere else in the Northwest Territories? Why are we subjected to pay hourly rates when nowhere else in the Northwest Territories has to? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I can tell the Member that you have one hour to pick up your loved one at the airport, because there is free parking at the airport under our current system and with our ticketing machine there, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can see Cabinet has done a fine job, because he didn't have that attitude when he was over here.

---Laughter

They must have held him up and brainwashed him. But, Mr. Speaker, that is another story for another time. Mr. Speaker, the honourable Minister is correct; you are allowed to be there for one hour, but if people want to go for lunch out there or whatever the case may be, or if they want to fly to a community for the day and fly back at the end of the day, they have to pay up to a maximum of $10 for that one day. We have weekly rates of $50 and we also have monthly rates of $150. This constituent brought this concern forward about fairness was not about getting in and getting out and the issue of parking; it was about a daily fee. The administration of a daily fee or that ticket seems very unfair and onerous. I am talking about fairness. Would the Minister agree to look into this issue and look at eliminating day fees, period, for Yellowknifers? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Just with respect to eliminating any fees, I just have to reiterate again that the pay for services is instituted again to discourage all the parking. That is hard to distinguish if one were to be there one hour or one day, hence the ticketing machine but that really does it. It kind of puts a time limit factor and we just cannot have everybody be parking there all day, Mr. Speaker. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess he is still a new Minister. I heard that, if there is something worth grabbing onto, it is the administration. I can tell you, Mr. Speaker, the first person there in the morning can say that there shouldn't be any vehicles there unless they have special tags or stamps proving that they are there for an extended period of time. The same person at the end of the day could also say no vehicles should be left, so they could administer it quite easily. Mr. Speaker, I would like this Minister to look into how much this territorial government has wasted on that parking machine out there, on keeping it fixed, because it does not work on a consistent and fair basis. I think it is a waste of time. We should be issuing weekly and monthly tickets only, and clearly saving our money and spending it wisely by not having a day fee process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Menicoche.