Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 3, 2007-2008, requests authority for additional appropriations of $21.305 million for appropriation expenditures and $7.951 million for capital investment expenditures in the 2007-2008 fiscal year.
To clarify the contents of the bill, of the $21.305 million in operations expenditure appropriations requested in the supplementary appropriation, approximately $1.9 million is offset by federal revenues. That includes $1.4 million for municipal rural infrastructure funding.
Of the $7.951 million in capital investment expenditures requested in the supplementary appropriation, $4.5 million is offset by revenues, $1.7 million is in municipal rural infrastructure funding from the federal government and $2.7 million is from Canada Infoway Inc. as part of the Canadian Electronic Health Record System project.
Major items included in this request for the operations expenditures are as follows: $5.3 million associated with hospital and physician services to N.W.T. residents receiving services outside of the N.W.T.; $2 million across departments to fund increased utility costs related to government operations; $1.6 million for increased expenditures for supplementary health benefits, including extended health benefits, indigenous health benefits and Metis health benefits; $1.6 million for additional costs incurred for dental premiums and medical travel assistance payments on behalf of G.N.W.T. employees; and $1.2 million for additional costs related to the Territory Power Subsidy Program.
Also of note on the operations side is a net increase of $2.8 million for the environmental liability associated with government infrastructure as a result of 11 newly identified sites as well as a re-evaluation of some previously identified sites.
That concludes my opening remarks. We’ll be prepared to answer questions Members may have. Thank you.