Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Final supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. How much money have we spent on this machine to date in the last three years? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is a level of detail that I do not have with me right now. I can answer that in due time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yellowknife gets everything, even five questions.

---Laughter

Mr. Speaker, we all spoke of our frustration of the funding cuts and some of the youth funding. My question today will be directed to the Minister of MACA, Mr. Michael McLeod. I would like to ask him if the Government of the Northwest Territories, and more specifically his department, do they have programs for funding youth drop-in centres? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Michael McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, I guess the response would be that we don't have any program funding directed specifically to drop-in centres. We have a number of programs that are youth related and a number of programs that are utilized in the drop-in centres, especially the Community Initiatives Program, where a lot of the communities have taken the opportunity to apply for this program to build up the infrastructure or renovate the facilities to be used for drop-in centres. There are other programs that we have had through the youth core that had been accessed and also the federal government has a federal program that provides O and M dollars for the friendship centres to operate as drop-in centres. However, we don't have a specific program that would provide those kinds of funds. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Michael McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the concept of drop-in centres is something that has really taken off in the last couple of years since the pot of money for youth funding has come available. We have a million dollar budget. A lot of the communities are taking advantage of it. We, as a government, have recognized that there is a gap in the funding available for operations for the friendship centres. Most of the communities are able to access funding through the community initiatives or own-source revenues to construct or upgrade facilities. However, there has been a void. The federal government program has been able to address some of it. However, there are still a lot of communities that haven't been able to access it. We are looking at the situation. We would like to be able to step in to work with the communities. We have to have more discussion around this issue. The department is hosting a Youth Program manager's conference or information sharing session at the end of this month in November. We are also meeting with the federal department's Youth Program managers early in the New Year, in January. We are hoping that we will be able to build a case over this coming new fiscal year. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister for that. The Minister was mentioning that he was hoping to build a case. If the Minister builds a case, then who would finance the youth drop-in centres? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Minister McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of options of how we can address the issue and addressing the concern about O and M dollars for youth centres. We can always look internally. Our budget is $1 million. We may be able to shift our programming around. That is why we have to talk with some of the Youth Program managers. My preference would be to find some new dollars. My preference would be to find new dollars within the ranks of the federal government. We would like to have those discussions. We don't have all of the pieces put together yet. We are working on doing the research and putting all the options forward so we can have discussions with the people across the territory and come to some conclusion. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister McLeod. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Minister of Public Works and Services, Mr. Krutko. As you know, Mr. Speaker, Kam Lake industrial park is home to a number of businesses and local contractors. These local contractors, Mr. Speaker, have shops. They have workers. They have, in some cases, a tremendous amount of overhead here in Yellowknife. Public Works and Services has a contract that I want to talk about today. That is an as and when maintenance contract that, to my knowledge, was awarded to a non-local resident who is not from this region who lives and conducts business from a travel trailer. In fact, to understand, Mr. Speaker, that the contractor's main place of residence over the summer months was, in fact, in one of our local campgrounds. Mr. Speaker, this, of course, would be in contravention of the Territorial Parks Act if he is indeed conducting business from one of our territorial parks. I would like to ask the Minister of Public Works and Services when contracting as and when contracts, are there any guidelines about contracting with businesses who have a legitimate address and are, in fact, local? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister responsible for Public Works and Services, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we do have guidelines in regard to contracts we do let and in regards to the individuals which have to have

a fixed address ensuring that they do conduct a business. Also, we check the BIP registry to make sure they are a territorial registered business under the business incentive policy. Again, we do have checks and balances in place to ensure that we have northern contractors who are who they say they are and, more importantly, that they do have to have a fixed address. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as you can well imagine, there is concern in the local contracting community here when an individual can, in fact, not have a local address and, in fact, get awarded contracts, because they do not have the overhead that local contractors have. This practice shouldn't be allowed to happen. I would like to ask the Minister, and I had asked the former Minister of Public Works and Services questions about this contract so he is probably a little bit more aware of it, but I want to ask the new Minister if he will, in fact, take a look at the guidelines to ensure that this practice is not allowed to continue to happen. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to working with the Member to try to come to the bottom of this. I am sure that no one is taking advantage of our contracting policies and guidelines and finding loopholes. If anything, we should be ensuring that the guidelines are being followed and that this case, if someone has violated, I would like to be aware of that. So I look forward to working with the Member to get to the bottom of this. Thank you.