Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I will answer the seniors' facility in Deline first, before I go into the area needs. I have been working with the Minister of Health in regards to the Deline facility. We have struck a committee to look at some options for that facility. It did go back to the community. There was a band council resolution passed to use it as a community service centre to provide health and elders' care programs out of that centre. Along with myself and the Minister of Health, we have sort of verbally agreed that we will look at trying to get in there and meet the community's request.

When it comes to seniors' facilities, I know we have had a lot of discussions here about seniors' facilities and why they are not being occupied and also who pays the cost. The present arrangement we have is that we construct the facilities and operate them. The Department of Health and Social Services pays the O and M and the cost to operate and maintain those facilities. The decision to determine where seniors' facilities go is done by surveys done by the Department of Health and Social Services and ourselves in regards to numbers of seniors in the communities in the region, and then the region makes a decision on allocation, where those facilities should go. I know this question has been raised in my travels in the Sahtu, in Deline, also in Fort Good Hope and in other communities that they want these facilities in their communities. But I have always stated that decision has to be made by the Sahtu Health and Social Services Board. They are the ones that develop health infrastructure in communities from health centres, to seniors' facilities, to care facilities. That decision has to be made by the Sahtu Health and Social Services Board. We are still waiting for them to make that decision. We have made the decision between the Minister of Health and myself to proceed with the motion we have received to look at converting the seniors' facility in Deline into a community service centre to provide services to seniors and care providers. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I have Ms. Lee next. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to complete the list of questions I have here on Novel so I can move on. I am hoping that the Minister could give short, crisp answers to some of these questions. Mr. Chair, I think the thing about this is that this project has moved far beyond being a concept. I think it is time that we address some of the detailed questions. The Minister and the president mentioned earlier that there has been a committee organized. There has been a working committee on this. There have been ongoing negotiations. I think that we have the right to expect some of this detailed information as there is a parallel process going on in the committee.

Mr. Chair, I guess one thing good about all of these discussions that are going back and forth is, whether the Minister wants to admit it or not, he is making changes to this project. I remember, about a year ago, he or other Ministers in this House said flatly that there will be nobody in the North who could do anything with this project, and now he is much opened up to the idea that there will be possibilities of northern training, northern labour and business opportunities. Although the level of detail he is talking of is not quite clear. It is still in the idea of sort of possibilities. I think we need, as a government, when we are talking about a $300 million project, we need to get a lot more detail than that.

Mr. Chair, for example, the courthouse idea, a 50 or 60 million dollar building, we are putting in $1 million just to do a detailed study on it. A lot of projects like this require a half-decent feasibility study, a market analysis, and a cost-benefit analysis. That is just what goes on all the time. I don't mean to harp at this point, but the Housing Corporation is an organization where it just went under an audit review where a brilliant concept of selling housing to Russia didn't really work out. I cannot, in my mind, sit here and say, okay, I believe in this concept. I accept the concept. I like your ideas. Go to town on it. I am going to continue to ask these questions. Even if we make progress reluctantly, I am still going to be happy with getting the details out, than going with the dream.

Mr. Chair, in the answers to the written questions that the Minister provided, I asked questions about how he foresees the NWT coming up with 1,400 units and 1,400 land spaces. I can't even imagine how they are negotiating in CMHC. I would think if I were to go to a bank and say I want to borrow $200 million or whatever because I want to build a house, the first thing they are going to ask me is, where are you going to put it? Where is your land? You are not supposed to be able to get even financing unless you have land. We understand how complex land issues are. That is even beyond Minister Krutko's control. What I need to see, though, is his, like, well-designed conceptual idea about how this is going to work. Whether it is a committee or it is the Minister of Finance or MACA or Cabinet or somebody with brilliant minds at the other end, I want them to have thought of it as, okay, how are we going to come up with 1,400 lots. Can I even get an idea about who are the players? What about land tenure? Are we negotiating with regional governments, self-governments, local governments? How long would it take? Where would it come? Where are we with that? The year 2011 is not a long time away. When I ask questions about how you are going to come up with the 1,400 lots, 100 a year, that is going to take 14 years. What are you going to do with these lots while they are waiting to be placed? Voila! The Minister writes me back and says, actually, it is not going to take 14 years. We are going to move this 500 at a time; 500 lots. I need the Minister to...He doesn't have to give me all that information now. If he can commit to giving me a very clear picture about how this land selection, land identification and land infrastructure is going to work, I will be happy with that because I have about four more other questions.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, everyone here realizes that we are still in negotiations. We are still working to look at what the total logistics cost is going to be to move these 1,400 units into the communities. We are exactly dealing with the lands question. I think it would be more appropriate for myself to commit to the House here today that, once we have this information down to a presentable item for committee, come back and explain exactly how the logistics are going to be handled, how the land development is going to be taken care of, and also exactly how we are going to be

able to deliver this program within the time frames we are saying. That work is presently underway. It is being worked on by the technical staff that we have in place. Until we have the final product, I think if the committee can wait until we have that, bring it back to committee, do a presentation and ensure that we have a product that we can present to committee. Right now, because it is basically a rolling draft, we're working with our partners to have this thing done as soon as possible and, at that point, I can commit to committee to go to committee, present all the details that the Member is asking for and have it out there for us to basically make that decision. But I think that we have to realize that we are presently in the process of negotiations and we are presently in the process of compiling that information, but I am committing to the Member that once that information is compiled and once we have all the data collected, I will commit to report back to committee with all our findings, share that information with committee, and at that point then we'll be able to assess exactly how this is going to play itself out. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this is the information that is so vital. That goes directly to estimating even a number of $300 million. I mean, it is not peripheral information, it is not tertiary information. It goes to the core of $300 million. I don't understand how, without having that information, the Minister even knows that this is going to be a $297 million project. That is just not acceptable. That is just not acceptable. I am not going to wait. I mean, what is he negotiating on? Is he just negotiating on concept, we think it's going to be $300 million? The Minister says that 200 out of the $300 million is going to go on conversion, on land development, infrastructure, and so how does he come up with that? Like what are they using in their negotiations and why can I not have that? I really think we need to send this to an independent body who can look at this information. It is vital. We are committing 10 to 15 year Housing Corp money and probably all MACA money in terms of land development into this whole big pot. We need, as a government, to do more diligence.

Let me just ask a second question on this. If he does not know the land costs and all the other stuff, then how could he say in his written answer to me, with any level of confidence, that $200 million out of $270 million will come to the North? He says here that all that housing money is going to come up here. How could he say that? On what basis is he saying that?

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Mr. Minister.

Mr. Chairman, for Ms. Lee's comfort, I will give her the information we have been able to develop to date, with the understanding that this information is not complete because we have not concluded our negotiations in regards to this item. So I don't want to have this information out there knowing that it's not complete, that we have preliminary numbers that we're working from and those numbers change every day of the week. We have people that are negotiating between the different parties to come up with numbers that we feel are the numbers that we will need to make the final decision. That's why we have the committee structure, so that we can go to committee with the information that we have to provide to committee, lay out exactly where we are going as a department, and I have gone forth to the committee before on this matter. I think to be fair to all the Members of this House, I believe that is the more appropriate process of getting it out there. If the Member wants or the committee would like to see the information we have to date with the understanding that this information is not complete information because there are other parties who are presently working on this. So I commit to the Member that if she wants, we can provide her the information we have to date with the understanding that it's not complete. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. I've got Mr. Pokiak next. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just following in line with one of my colleagues about the Novel project. Personally, I think it's a good idea and a lot can be used for the small communities, but I just have a couple of quick comments in that regard. Yesterday, a couple of MLAs indicated that they were invited by the Minister to go and see firsthand the ATCO mobile homes in Calgary, the manufacturing plant. I understand last summer, during a meeting in Calgary, aboriginal leaders were invited to actually go and see the manufacturing plant at ATCO. I'm just wondering if the Minister can tell on whether the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation or Inuvialuit Development Corporation were invited to actually visit the plant and, if not, will they be given the same opportunity to go out to the ATCO manufacturing plant and take a look at these units? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have sent letters to all aboriginal organizations in the Northwest Territories. In regards to the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, we did get a response back saying they declined the tour because most of them have already gone on that tour. So we have sent letters out to all aboriginal organizations, including the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just following up on that, when the aboriginal leaders went down to take a look at the plant, what were their thoughts in regard to these mobile homes? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

From a first impression, a wow; and then on the way out they still couldn't believe that they'd walked through this facility. But I think, more important, we have received responses back from different leaders in regards to the concept, which, again, we are waiting for responses back, but in most impressions that we have from most leaders, from chiefs up and down the valley, that they are very impressed that they can come up with a facility. I think seeing is believing. I think unless you actually physically walk through it and see it for yourself, you can't really judge something until you actually have done that. So I think most of the leaders that have gone through it have been pretty impressed, and we have received some very good

comments back from different people in regards to some options we can consider looking at in regards to those units. So we have received formal responses, which have been positive to date.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm assuming that the people that went down they were basically from the southern part of the area. I'm just wondering if there was any people from the Beaufort, mainly the Nunakput riding, that actually can confer with these units on whether they would meet the cold weather standards up in the Beaufort. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have had an individual I know from Tuk in regards to the mayor and a couple other contractors who were at these different shows in Calgary, which they did do a tour of these facilities. I think that because of the R rating of the unit, is R-2000, which has got about an 80 percent rating. So that's one thing we're working on with our technical people to bring it up to arctic package standards. So these facilities will be in the northern region, they will be built up around Inuvik and places like that. So they do have to be able to meet the climate that they're going to be in. So we are making sure that they do meet our northern standards by way of R-2000. If we can exceed that, we're working towards that. Again, to date, we think we have some 37 community leaders that have gone through that facility and a lot of people that have gone on their own. One of the things I have been looking at is the possibility of the Inuvik Petroleum Show coming up. I have suggested that if it's possible if they can have this facility at the Inuvik Petroleum Show so that the public can see exactly what this product looks like and people from the Delta and Beaufort region who are going to be there at that time can see it for themselves. I think that's another way we can see exactly what the public interest in this project will be. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just following in line with the Inuvik Petroleum Show, I'm just wondering if it would be a good time to transport one of those units down there right now and we'll see how well they can deliver. Thank you.