Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can initiate discussions with the department and have a review of the accident that occurred within the last year and get back to the Member on that. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Oral questions .The honourable Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to embark on a subject which may take a little time or it could take a lot of time during this session. My questions are for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. It has to do with the new formula for arriving at funding for municipalities, known to us now as the New Deal. Some communities are starting to analyze these numbers and calculate these out and they are starting to think that maybe the New Deal is not as good as we might have thought initially.

Mr. Speaker, one of the areas that my community of Hay River, our community of Hay River, has been cut back in is in the area of support for the subsidization of water and sewer delivery services. That reduction is very close to $200,000. So just to start off, Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister why was that support to the community of Hay River reduced by $200,000?

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the New Deal has been an initiative we have embarked on since the beginning of this 15th Assembly, this new government. It's really proven to be popular and successful in providing new dollars to communities. As part of the whole strategy, we needed to review a number of funding programs that we had and change the way we provided capital to the communities. Up to that point, there was no capital provided to the larger centres and we have incorporated, we reviewed the Water and Sewer Subsidy Program and changed the formula. We have looked at the way things were calculated historically. It was very difficult for communities to understand and there had been a lot of interference or political decisions that allowed some communities to have more money put into the pot really not following the formula. We have also looked at operations and maintenance and had to review that. Some of these programs, Mr. Speaker, hadn't been reviewed since '96 when the O and M was reviewed or the water and sewer was reviewed. So we decided to create a new formula that people could understand, people would be able to follow.

It's really fairly simple. We have costs that are fixed costs and we looked at each community and have been able to calculate each community's infrastructure or the water treatment plants, the sewage lagoons and everything else and were able to cost factor into a formula that is set and calculated even before one drop of water is produced. Then we factored into the variable costs, where we looked at the fuel, is it a blended system, is it trucked water, and have been able to calculate the variable costs. We factored in also the ability to raise revenues and applied that. This is a new system where people will understand. I think there are about four communities that have seen reductions.

In the case of Hay River, there was an allocation outside of the Water and Sewer Subsidy Program that was to the tune of $200,000 that we could not justify and we have removed it.

We've also been increasing this program. If you look at the dollars involved, Mr. Speaker, from the time this government came into play, we've increased the funding to the Town of Hay River by 91 percent. So we have increased one area, but we've decreased in the water/sewer subsidy. The program dollars are flexible enough so that money can be used from one pot to compensate for the other. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to thank the Minister for that explanation. When the Minister talks about accepting the variable and fixed costs of delivering water and sewer services in the community on a trucked basis, is one of the variables that is considered the geography of the community in terms of how it is spread out? Hay River is an unusual community in the fact that if you start from the West Channel and go all the way to Paradise Valley, for which the town is now responsible to deliver trucked water and sewer services,

we are looking at about 30 miles. I don't think there are any other communities that are in that same situation. Is that one of the variables that was considered in coming up with the formula for Hay River, or was it just a cookie cutter approach? Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, when we looked at the different variables that needed to be calculated, we looked at some of the uniqueness. Mr. Speaker, the Town of Hay River pays for contractors to do that work, the same as the community of Kakisa, Enterprise and the Hay River Reserve. Now those communities have received increases because of the formula. But in terms of calculating dollars, we have to remember that in this new formula, we've taken the capital out of the Water and Sewer Subsidy Program and put capital in a different pot. That can be used for cross-subsidy for the water and sewer. So if you look at the town of Hay River and calculate the capital that would be required and can be transferred over, we estimate there could be $140,000 that could be transferred over from your pot of money. There is also money from your O and M that has been increased considerably that can be used. There is also, still in the budget, fiscal assets that they are calculating.

So, Mr. Speaker, we've sent our staff in there to explain the formula, to sit down with the council, and we can do it again if there is still some concern. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Minister is talking about taking money from a different pot that is arrived at through a certain formula and cross-subsidizing the water and sewer subsidy costs in Hay River. He's talking about cross-subsidizing. Is there anything in any of those other pots of money that Hay River is getting that is extraordinary, or are we on par with everybody else?

It's an interesting concept, but just let me make it an analogy. That's like saying you are re-evaluating someone's job and saying here is the new evaluation, here is the increase, but because you are getting an increase, we are going to stop, as your employer, paying your insurance or benefits in some other way. You are making more money overall, so, therefore, you can pick up your own costs of that contribution. That is what it seems like. Going back to my question then, is Hay River on par in every other way? We aren't getting anything extraordinary. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, Hay River is certainly on par now. They were for many years getting extra money that other communities were not receiving. In fact, some communities were receiving no subsidy at all. So they are on par now. They have received 91 percent increase over the last three or four years. When you factor in the federal government money they receive, the town council's budget has increased by 110 percent, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Mr. Speaker, part of the reason I believe Hay River was getting more money is because there were certain parts of the corridor that were annexed and taken into Hay River. At the time, the government recognized those additional costs because of the corridor annexation and put money into the subsidy to reflect that. Is that not why Hay River was getting more money? What has changed? Hay River still has to take care of the corridor. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, under the previous formula, Hay River should have been receiving $316,000. They were receiving $566,000. We are not sure how and why there was more money being provided over and above the Water and Sewer Subsidy Program. We have increased that amount from $316,000 to $366,000. Now they are on par with every other community in the Northwest Territories. There is a lot of other dollars that are being packaged up and provided, too.

Mr. Speaker, when we looked at providing money to the communities, one of our considerations was to lump all the money together and just give it as a block fund and say here are your dollars, this is for water and sewer, operations and maintenance and everything else. We wanted to make sure people understood how the budgets were flowing. We did not expect communities to put blinders on and say you have given a million extra dollars, but you took $200,000 here.

Mr. Speaker, these dollars are flexible. There are no restrictions on O and M dollars. You can use it wherever you want. There are costs for capital in the Water and Sewer Subsidy Program that has to be rolled out and put under the capital program, Mr. Speaker. I think it's a very open and transparent system we brought into play here and I think the communities, for the most part, are welcoming it. There are still some communities that have questions and we will be glad to continue working with them. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. McLeod.

Mr. Speaker, we have information going back to the 1980s on the different herds, for the three different Bluenose herds, Bluenose East and West and Cape Bathurst, Bathurst herd, Beverly, Qamanirjuaq and Ahiak herds. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn't hear the Minister say what the total population of those four herds was in 1986. I would like to hear that answer. When you add the seven herds up that are identifiable today by ENR biologists, what is the total population of caribou in the Northwest Territories? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. McLeod.