Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to take this opportunity to echo the thoughts of Mr. Braden and recognize a group of individuals in our community.

This group, Mr. Speaker, is the St. Patrick's High School Students Against Drinking and Driving, commonly known as SADD. This dedicated group of students, staff and community members has been very active since 1994, promoting healthy choices for students to make in their lives. The chapter was originally formed by Mr. Johnnie Bowden, the current principal of St. Pat's who was the vice-principal at the time, and Ms. Michelle Thoms, who is still active as the SADD advisor for St. Pat's.

This group is a small but vocal partner to national and international organizations as well. They have steadily grown in numbers since their formation and now have 60 active members in the St. Patrick High School SADD chapter, but consider the entire student body as members.

Events have been initiated and hosted for students which offer alternative activities to drinking and other negative influences our youth face in their everyday lives.

Mr. Speaker, there are other chapters in Yellowknife at Sir John Franklin High School, École St. Joseph and Weledeh Catholic School. Recent interest to start their own chapters has come from northern communities such as Hay River, Fort Simpson, Rae, Fort Smith and Fort Liard.

Next week, 38 representatives of this chapter will be going to Edmonton to attend the 10th Annual Canadian Youth Against Impaired Driving Conference. This conference will bring together over 1,000 delegates and presenters from across Canada who will attend workshops and gain valuable knowledge and experiences to reaffirm their positive life choices.

I would like to point out that the students who are attending this conference from Yellowknife have had to work their way towards attending the event. Through various fundraising events, the students have had to raise approximately $900 each to attend the conference. I am pleased to say that this group has taken the challenge to pay their way without any government funding. This is no small task, Mr. Speaker, especially for students to undertake.

In closing, I would like to ask my fellow Members to join me in a show of support for the students, staff and delegates who will be attending the conference next week in Edmonton and wish them well in the various activities they will be participating in. I am sure, Mr. Speaker, we will be hearing a lot more from this group over the next year as they work towards their preparations to host the next national conference here in Yellowknife. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

-- Applause

Mr. Chairman,

I MOVE that the committee consideration of the Department of Health and Social Services in the 2000-2001 interim appropriation be deferred at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I move that the committee consideration of Health and Social Services be deferred at this time. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am glad to hear that we will have that information by next week and later at the appropriate time, I will present a motion that the budget for Health and Social Services be deferred until that time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I still have concerns about the new major projects identified in the interim. We have heard from Mr. St. Germaine that there is a functional review ongoing. When that functional review is completed, we will have a better idea as to which projects have been identified as priorities and which projects this funding might be used for.

The Minister indicated, initially at least, that she was not sure or certain that this money would be used in the next four months. I am wondering if the Minister could give us some indication or idea of when she expects this functional review will be completed and when we might find out where this money is to be spent. Specifically, which capital projects it will be allocated to.

I would like to specifically know, if it is possible that the functional review could be completed, say next week, and the Minister could come back to this House and give us, next week, a list of capital projects that this money was ear marked for. If this is not the case and the functional review will not be complete by next week, I would then like the Minister to explain to us why she thinks the Members would not move to have this item deleted from the interim.

I would like to respond if I could, and request some clarification. I believe the Minister said that it is her understanding that in these four months, they will not require any additional money for forced growth, so that is why it was not put in. My understanding from committee briefings was that they were told they did not have to put forced growth into the interim projections. Although it would factor in here, they had not been able to do it in time. It is not a question, I guess, but a point. There seems to be some discrepancy, but I am glad the Minister has cleared this up.

As far as the functional review of capital projects, I am still concerned about what seems to be "just in case" planning and design money. It does not seem like this fits the category of an expenditure that is urgently required within the interim period. I do have some concerns. DCN has been addressed. It was mentioned that 384 kilobytes are needed for Telehealth to operate and work. I am wondering if it was known at the outset, when we started to pump money into this project, that this would be the case and there would be a downfall in this area as far as providing it to all of the communities. It seems that if we can only provide it to a few of the communities then it is not really doing what we need it to do.

The Minister mentioned that it was conceived with good intentions. That is fine, but as one of my colleagues mentioned here, some roads are paved with good intentions, and I would say that Highway No. 3 fits the bill there, Mr. Krutko, considering it is not paved. Just a comment. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have some general comments on the interim appropriation as Health has brought it before us. It seems to me, that when we look at this department, what we are given appears to be a different treatment of this process than other departments have undertaken. It almost seems to be a double standard. We have seen departments come back to us and talk about their forced growth, and tell us that they recognize forced growth has to be taken into account in the interim appropriation. They have identified what they think it will be, and they have laid it out for us to have a look at.

This department has told us in briefings while they do now know what the forced growth will be, and that there will be some forced growth for that four-month period, it was not included when they made their interim projections. I find this somewhat shocking. I do not know why, if the other departments can come forward and toe the line, this department cannot. I recognize that it is a large budget, but I think it is critical, especially with, I am sure, how easy it is for costs to get out of hand and escalate quickly in this area.

Undedicated capital is another concern that I have. I think that we have seen that the government overall has decided that it needed to defer $10 million worth of capital projects that are needed, necessary and important. Yet this department has not deferred any capital, and even further to that, they are holding $200,000 in this interim for new major projects. Now, they do not know what this new major project is going to be, but they assure us that when they do decide what, when and if it will be, it will be an important one.

While I am sure that is the case, I think it would comfort this committee to know exactly what that project might be, because as I have said, we have to sit here and swallow this idea that other important capital projects have been deferred. The Territorial Treatment Centre, $250,000 in this interim, to reprofile this treatment centre for what may or may not become its future use. We do not know what is going to happen with this building. A lot of things here are hinging on what happens to the NAS, what happens to the building as far as the Housing Corporation is concerned. I think, as the committee mentioned, there are a lot of variables that have to fall into place here for us to actually get down the road to needing this money to reprofile this treatment centre.

I do not believe this is something that is going to happen in the next four months and I do not believe, as we are told, the justification that the expenditure must be urgently required in the interim period. I cannot imagine that the Minister will sit here and tell us that they are certain this is going to happen in these four months and that they need this money.

The other concern that I have with the department, and it is not just health, but the Digital Communication Network. Four years ago, when this was set up, I do not know if this was ill-conceived, or if it was not planned properly, but we are now finding out that there is not the bandwidth to do the kinds of things we need to do. I would urge the Minister to take this to the Premier and say, "Listen, we have to make a decision here. We either have to throw some real money at this thing, and buy some bandwidth and make this work, so that we can start to reduce costs in medical travel and start to reap some of the benefits of having the system up and running, or cut it off and get rid of it." I do not see that we have a lot of choice here. So, I would urge the Minister to take a hard look at this and fix this thing or get rid of it. Generally, those are my comments. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the Honourable Mrs. Groenewegen, Minister of Health and Social Services, further to my Member's statement and oral questions today, regarding the current payment of extended health benefits.

I am requesting your response in addressing the following questions:

1. Would it be possible for extended health benefit claims to be piggybacked on the current billing system used by your department?
2. What would be the cost implications of upgrading our current billing system to support an online billing system for prescription medications?
3. In the interim, is there any way in which an extended health benefit claim form can be processed for reimbursement in a more timely manner?

Thank you for your attention to the above questions on behalf of my constituents. I look forward to your timely response.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you very much, Mr. Premier, for the "when". I would like to address the "who". I would suggest that given Mr. Handley's experience with Diavik, recognizing various pitfalls that companies have to deal with in our regulatory process, Mr. Handley might be ideally suited for this. I wonder if the Premier can tell us if he will assign the file to Mr. Handley? Thank you.