That's the equivalent of more than 33 classrooms. There's lots of room in Yellowknife, but we need to figure out how to use it differently. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, Mr. Speaker, this crisis should have never happened. The Minister should have made a direction, should have made a policy position over two to three years ago. Yes, he's right; he's been dealing with this and I would say maybe not dealing with this by striking a report and then striking a committee and it's only when it comes down to the wire that we have to force a decision. We could have made this decision three years ago. Mr. Speaker, why did the Minister not do something to this issue in concrete terms

three years ago, rather than just making someone produce a report? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, clearly, the Member thinks that this government should have moved to expropriate one of the schools from YK 1. That's not the way in which we operate. We have two elected boards in town; we have worked to facilitate them to have some discussions about how they could utilize the space. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, we can't expropriate them because we don't own them and we can't tell them what to do. We're going to have to choke their funding on their maintenance budget or something. That is irresponsible, Mr. Speaker. Why isn't the Minister pursuing a shared perspective so we can deal with this capacity problem once and for all as a community? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not sure that this government has the legislative ability to force a shared use of school facilities. So if the boards are prepared to share facilities, this government would support that 100 percent.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Oral questions. The honourable Member from the Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Bell.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did inquire with the department. There is, I guess, a difference of opinion, if you will, in terms of what the community or some members in the community believe was promised and what the department understands the discussions were about, but it's some time now since I've raised this with the department and with the region. I could go back and revisit that and report to the Member, and I'm prepared to do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is not the first time people from my region have had some discretion in terms of discussions of the difference of opinions and interpretations between this government and my people and we can go back right to 1921 if you want to. But, Mr. Speaker, people in my community, people in prominent authority have said this is what the government said and nobody picked up the ball after that. So I ask if the Minister would go back into Tulita, sit down with the leaders in Tulita and say what type of discussions happened, what was promised, what were you guys expecting in terms of getting community freezers? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.

Mr. Speaker, as I indicated, I'm certainly prepared to go back and revisit this, discuss this with the community leadership, understand better their feelings about what obligations were made by this government and what commitments were made by this government, then we can have some discussion around that. As the Members know, we are not in the community freezer business anymore. We've worked with communities and with traditional harvesters to try to accommodate them as much as possible to make sure that we provide chest freezers where there are facilities that we own and those are no longer viable. I'll go back and look at the ownership of the freezers in the Member's communities and we can talk about that. We would be willing to look to find a solution, Mr. Speaker. I think this government has demonstrated, over the last number of years, a commitment to supporting the traditional economy and traditional harvesters and I'm prepared to work toward that end. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I ask the Minister if he would make a commitment to me in this House in terms of a time frame that we can get down to the people in the Sahtu, specifically the people in Tulita, listen to their concerns as to what was said at that meeting that would get them to say where are our chest freezers that the government said they were going to do? When, in terms of a timeframe? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.

Sure, Mr. Speaker, we can commit to do that in the next month with the region, sit down with the people. I don't think the discussion going

back in the past would have been about chest freezers. I think it would have been about a community freezer. The idea to move to chest freezers is a very recent one. We just recognized that the community freezers, there were a number of problems with them. If they shut down and stopped operating, it's difficult to get somebody in to do the repairs; oftentimes the whole community's meat would spoil; they simply weren't reliable; and difficult to keep them clean. So that's why very recently we made the shift to moving toward community freezers. Back when the discussions would have happened with the leadership and RWED, there would have been no discussions around individual freezers, I don't believe, Mr. Speaker, but we can do that in the next month. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate, and the people in the community appreciate, the commitment from the Minister to sit down and look at community freezers and this issue and see if we can find some resolution between the community and the department itself in terms of how do we get a community freezer into our community that would be beneficial to us. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Bell.