Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am in agreement with that. I am pleased to hear that the relationship we have is a collaborative and a constructive one.

Mr. Speaker, a major gap in the scope of our WCB delivery is the issue of chronic pain. Are we ready to modernize our legislation or regulations, or at least our thinking and our attitudes toward this very real and debilitating type of injury, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I talked to the governance council chair on Monday of this week. He advised me that the governance council will be looking at this issue very closely in the next little while. Just looking at the decision that recently came down from Justice Schuler, she commented in that that she thought it would take some time for the WCB to address this issue. I got the sense from the chair of the governance council that was going to be the case. It would take some time. I don't think this is an area that we are going to try in legislation. At this point, that is not the way we are looking at it. I will wait for advice from the governance council. But he has assured me that they will look at it and work on it with a view to coming forward with a position very quickly. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the last couple days, I have been talking about the needs of the children in the NWT and, in my particular case, the needs of the children of Inuvik. As many of you know, the

children of Inuvik go to these different programs and they have to go around town. We are starting to have a little trouble with buildings. I would like to ask the Minister of Education, regarding the new $64 million school going up in Inuvik, if he would incorporate the requirements of the Children's First Society into the new school? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is talking over the past couple of days about the benefits of incorporating childcare space into learning facilities like schools. I would say that I agree with him that it would be the best possible option if we could see early childcare spaces close to or incorporated in schools. We would be quite prepared to incorporate the space into the school, but we don't have the capital program that funds the building of those spaces, so we encourage the community to take a look at ways in which they could raise funds to have the facility incorporated in the school. We are quite prepared to make sure that it is included in the functional plan. But when it comes to detailed planning, they would need a commitment from the community for the funds to build the facility. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister is speaking about the capital funds and asking them to come up with a portion. What would we have to do, as the government, to ensure that we can incorporate and pay for these requirements of all the children into schools across the Northwest Territories? I would like to know if we have to change anything to do that. Is there something we can do? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The big issue would be one of the cost. If you were going to provide an extra space required for childcare facilities through government funds in every community across the North, it would have a significant cost. Right now, it is beyond the capability of our government to take on that sort of cost.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Final supplementary, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad the Minister mentioned cost, because I have been throwing some numbers around for some of the investments that this government made around the NWT. I see we spent $51 million on a jail, $41 million to a potential new courthouse, and $11 million investment in the secondary diamond industry. Why don't we consider these kids our rough diamonds? Let's build a facility to polish them and get them ready for the outside world. Is there an option that the Children's First Society has so that the government builds a building and they rent it off them, or make some kind of an arrangement? We have to make investments into places where they are needed and not just throw money away.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would be quite pleased to take that proposal up with my colleagues at the FMB meeting.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, further to my Member's statement, I would like to ask questions to the Minister of Finance. Mr. Speaker, I took an economics course in a business program that I attended. One of the few things I learned from there is that for every dollar we put into our economy, there is supposed to be a multiplier effect of $4. So that would translate that, if you throw away a dollar, you are throwing away $4 to somewhere else. Another thing I learned from being a politician is that the government has to do a different kind of cost-benefit analysis. You don't do a hard line analysis that businesses do, which is everything is about the bottom line. Public government and public expenditure is about how we maximize benefits for the people. I believe, in this budget, the Minister of Finance is asking for economic analyst positions in his department. I would like to know if the Minister has done, or plans to do, some kind of a cost-benefit analysis about the spin-off benefits of the pipeline that we can take advantage of. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. The honourable Minister of Finance, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, first of all, the vision that the government, as we see, we are presented with an opportunity to create some economic activity as a result of the pipeline going forward. One of those, as the Member has raised in her Member's statement, is about the Novel concept. If that is to proceed, there will be $250 million spent in the Northwest Territories through conversion of these units in setting up in communities.

---Applause

Mr. Speaker, there is a bit of vision for you. I have not taken the same course the Member has taken in economics, but I know that if we spend some money in the Northwest Territories, there will be a positive spin-off, and in our smallest communities where individuals cannot afford to pay $250,000 to $300,000 for a home, we can

put homes in those communities if this concept is proceeded with for any...(inaudible)...Thank you.

---Applause

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Supplementary, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if the Minister just listened to my little lesson there, he would have learned that spending $250 million to an Alberta firm would result in $250 million going out of the Territories. Spending it here, that translates into four times more. That is a billion dollars. Mr. Speaker, would he, given that he is preparing to spend almost $300 million, this is a mega project. This is the single most significant deal that is going to come out of this thing. I would like to know if he would present to this House a cost-benefit analysis of this project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Along with her economics course, maybe I can provide her a lesson in some mathematical situations, Mr. Speaker. One, as we have laid out -- and we have laid it out for the Members, we have provided the information -- we are looking to go to CMHC for $119 million. The GNWT is looking at $116 million and the private people in the Northwest Territories, by buying these houses, can contribute another $62 million. The $250 million I referenced is not going to pay ATCO for these facilities. That $250 million will be spent in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final supplementary, Ms. Lee.