Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Minister responsible for Health and Social Services, Ms. Lee.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have chosen not to make changes to status quo. We do have public administrators at Stanton as well as Hay River and the other authorities have boards of trustees. I’ve chosen not to change the status quo pending all the discussions we’ve been having on board reform. That’s where it’s at. But if the Member is interested in considering other situations, I’d be happy to discuss that with her.

Yes, I would be interested in the Minister pursuing a board of trustees to act in an advisory capacity. I don’t want this to conflict with the work that’s being done in terms of defining the roles and responsibilities of boards. I know there have been problems in other health regions with respect to deficits and so on. That may necessitate a change in the type of governance boards that are in place in the other regions as well. A board of trustees or, at the very least, a local public administrator I think would go some way toward that. I’d like to ask the Minister on a more immediate basis if she would consider entertaining names of candidates for a local public administrator.

I’d be more than willing to consider names of local Hay Riverites who may be willing, able, and qualified to serve as public administrator. I will undertake to reach out to community leadership organizations to seek names for that consideration.

We greatly appreciate the stability that has been re-established with our health and social services authority with the presence of a new CEO there. I’m not saying it didn’t exist with the previous CEO, but in the transition, Mr. Al Woods has brought experience and stability to that role again and we really do appreciate that. I would like to ask the Minister what the status is of the master development plan for the renovation or replacement of the Hay River hospital.

On that note I should say that we did concentrate on trying to maintain stability at the CEO level. We know that the previous CEO was thinking of leaving and we had to work on a succession plan. We will work on a public administrator level. With respect to the capital project, it’s in the planning study process. I believe the study’s almost completed. I don’t have that

information on me, but the last information I saw is it should be ready by this spring or summertime. I will get back to the Member on exactly when that is.

Thank you, Ms. Lee. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs and the environment. I seem to be adding the environment to every department here. I want to follow up on my statement earlier today. We have some real opportunities to enjoy some energy savings, reduce costs. There are community energy plans under the New Deal that are required for every community by 2010. Some are already completed. What programs does MACA have through their School of Community Government that helps train energy efficiency, energy planning, renewable energy technology to help facilitate and actually get these plans implemented and in place?

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is a new area that’s getting more and more attention lately. Not quite sure at the moment, but we are probably in the process of trying to put some information together to see what we can offer along these lines that would benefit the communities.

I appreciate that commitment of the Minister and I’ll look forward to hearing back from him. Perhaps he can suggest a date when he might know something about that. I’m wondering, even in our capital plans, each community is required to do a five-year capital plan and there are five criteria, I believe, for rating capital. The environment has not been one of those. In speaking with people working with that in the department they agreed that it’s probably something that should be in place. Would the Minister commit to also reviewing the capital planning process under the New Deal and see if we can get that in as a routine part of the operation?

I do know that communities know that this is something that’s becoming more and more prominent in the landscape, they are working on their community energy plans when they submit their capital plans to Municipal and Community Affairs.

Thanks for the comments from the Minister. I just want to clarify whether that was a commitment to review the capital process and make sure that one of the criteria would be environmental criteria.

I will commit to working with the NWT Association of Communities to see what kind of progress we can make on this issue. If the Member wants to take that as a commitment, yes that is a commitment to review it.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is for the Minister responsible for Finance and I’d like to applaud both the Minister responsible for FMB and Minister responsible for MACA for co-hosting the Volunteer Summit on March 6th and 7th .

I also understand that during that summit there will be a separate meeting going on to discuss what is possible with regard to funding NGOs under the current policy and then to discuss possible changes that NGOs wish to see in the GNWT funding policies. Could the Minister of Finance tell me who will be attending that secondary or separate meeting? Who has been invited to participate?

Thank you, Mr. Abernethy. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As much as I hate to do this, I’m going to have to take that as notice.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Item 9, returns to written questions. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to return to item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery.

---Unanimous consent granted

Item 5, recognition of visitors in the gallery. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

I’d like to recognize a constituent from Fort Good Hope in the Sahtu region, Mr. Jerry Lennie, who’s here to see democracy in progress.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Deh Cho, Mr. McLeod.