Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was making general comments earlier, but, from my general comments, I would like to ask a couple of questions. One is in the definitive objectives, pages 13-6 and 13-7, with regard to community planning and lands. First of all, in community planning, I wanted to have a clarification from the fourth-last line, "to conduct three regional training sessions and planning administration for community councils and staff in the Baffin, Keewatin and Inuvik regions." However, I did not see in the Five Year Capital Forecast that there have been letters coming in and some recommendations. In fact, I got a letter from the mayor of Repulse Bay desiring them to develop a road or access road to the North Pole River to develop a gravel site with dual purposes, that is recreation, because it is a spot where the community uses it for spring-time fishing and it is also a traditional camp. It has become inaccessible during the break-up. It will have multiple purposes, but mostly for an access road for gravel, because we experienced a very bad effect on the marine wildlife when the blasting was taking place to crush the rock, et cetera. Secondly, the dump truck they had became unusable during last summer or fall because it is not designed to carry the boulders, et cetera. It was only to be used for sand. Is this a definitive objective on the fourth-last line that will make this kind of provision available for the five year capital forecast plan? I don't see any kind of financial indication as to what year this would be developed. Would there be a plan to develop it? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a general comment first and I probably will have more specific questions after. I received a copy of a letter that was addressed to the honourable Minister responsible for MACA regarding formula funding for hamlets. I will just elaborate a little bit because I have elaborated on it for the Minister of Finance already. Last week, I said I would be presenting this case to the Minister when he comes before this committee to deal with MACA's O and M. The hamlet councils and I are concerned that the formula funding currently being provided to the hamlets is insufficient to meet the increasing demands being put on municipal governments in the NWT, particularly the small communities within Nunavut that I mentioned before. Since the development of the prime buy concept, hamlet councils have been assuming greater responsibility for evaluating and deciding upon critical local development issues. As the formation of Nunavut approaches, the volume of activity for hamlets within Nunavut is increasing even more than before.

Currently, hamlets feel they have insufficient funding for basic administrative support to deal with the routine business of running a municipal corporation. The administrative support is insufficient to devote the time needed for policy and program development in support of the council. Mr. Chairman, what I'm trying to say here is, hamlets do not only have to deal with MACA in the day to day running of the community. Other departments, agencies and organizations do not fund municipalities to deal with program and policy development. For example, the Nunasi Corporation, the NTI, DPW and Education all come to the hamlet for support that takes quite a bit of hamlets' time. Both in terms of the council's time and the administration time. There are not sufficient funds to allow other activities to take place in the area of policy and program development.

What we have been seeing is that there are too many people involved in separate programs at the territorial government level. That also creates much of the problem. One small example of this is that last year, the Department of Education, Culture and Employment advised us that funding for an apprentice that we had on staff in the hamlet was being eliminated. Since we could no longer afford to keep that person without funding assistance, we issued the person a lay- off notice. Within a couple of days of issuing the lay-off notice, another person from within the same office of the government advised us that they did have another program through which the person could be funded. This is but one small example of how it is confusing if you are a hamlet dealing with all kinds of departments. It becomes very frustrating. If there was one department dealing and coordinating with hamlets and between the departments the hamlet is dealing with, this would make it a lot easier.

Another issue of concern is the employees of the hamlets have requested that they be given equal treatment with the GNWT employees, with respect to vacation travel assistance. I talked about this with the Minister of Finance when he was at the witness table. Currently, the hamlet of Coral Harbour, for example, follows the old system whereby those going out on the land don't get nearly as much as those who take a flight somewhere like Winnipeg. As the majority of our hamlet employees either take on the land assistance or fly to destinations much closer to Coral Harbour than Winnipeg, the hamlet could not afford the additional funds required to move to the new government system without significant increases in the amount of formula funding that currently exists.

What the hamlet is requesting is that our formula funding be increased so that we can provide the same level of benefits to hamlet employees as government employees currently enjoy. The concern, Mr. Chairman, is that there is pressure, fairly attractive pressure, to have the hamlet be more involved under the transfer initiative program. Some of these initiatives will affect present government employees. For example, if the hamlet wants to take over the Department of Public Works, the maintenance person from Public Works will probably be transferred to the hamlet but that person will want to continue to enjoy his present benefits. Because such a move will probably be blended into the formula funding, rather than a separate agreement, that person will be denied what he used to enjoy when he was a government employee.

These are the kinds of concerns, Mr. Chairman, that the hamlet and I look forward to getting a favourable response on. I totally support the hamlet's request that there is an overview, at least a review of the present formula financing in light of the initiatives that will be taking place under the Honourable Minister Kakfwi.

Another concern I have in my general comments, Mr. Chairman, is that I asked a question of the Minister of MACA early this afternoon that required just a yes or no answer. On February 22, the Minister could not reply to my question regarding hockey players -- who happened to come from a small community, that being Coral Harbour -- who came in second and not one of them was selected for the Arctic Winter Games team. When the Minister did not know what the selection process was, I asked him to look into it and he promised to look into the matter to ensure that fairness and equality was practised in the selection process to avoid discrimination against small communities. My simple question this morning was, had the Minister found out why no players from the senior men's hockey team that came in second place were chosen to represent the Northwest Territories in the Arctic Winter Games in Slave Lake, Alberta this month.

My simple question, Mr. Chairman, was had the Minister found out. The answer should have been yes or no, either he found out or didn't find out. He took the question as notice. I really wonder why the question was taken as notice when the answer would have been yes or no. If he hadn't found out, fine. If he had, I would have wanted to find out what the selection process is that was used. I was a little bit disappointed. We have only four days left before Arctic Winter Games starts. I believe they start on Saturday and it would be very nice to be able to report back to Coral Harbour to say what I found out. To say either, we're sorry, we're still very proud of you but this is what the Minister said. Yet, to date, I have not received a response. These are my general comments, Mr. Chairman. If we are going through the estimates line by line, I will probably have more. Qujannamiik.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am in support of this motion, although not so much in the small communities at this time. There are very poorly coordinated efforts between different departments of what the capital needs are, especially in small communities. For example, in Repulse Bay, we have crushed rock used for municipal roads and development sites. Because it is in a small community, that community is issued a regular dump truck that is designed for sand hauling, not rocks and boulders the size of Madam Speaker's table. They are dumped in the dump truck from the payloader right into the box of the truck. Of course, the truck box is only a quarter of an inch thick and it becomes bent completely out of shape. After a while, the rocks start going through the box completely.

Within one summer and a half, the truck was absolutely useless because it not only works overtime, it was also allowed to take on the work that is beyond its capability. Yet, in the capital plans, there is no immediate plan to replace it. I am very, very hopeful that this motion, recommendation 27, will be reviewed very carefully and abided by the government so that these sorts of scenarios in small communities will no longer continue. Qujannamiik.

Madam Speaker, this question is directed to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs in his capacity as Minister responsible for sports and recreation. On February 22, 1994, I informed the Minister in this House that not one player from the Coral Harbour senior men's hockey team would be part of the Arctic Winter Games NWT men's hockey team, even though they came in second in the territorial trials. The Minister's response to the question I asked promised to look into the matter and ensure that fairness and equality is practised in the selection process to avoid discrimination against smaller communities. My question is, has the Minister found out why there were no players from the Coral Harbour senior men's hockey team that came in second place chosen to represent the Northwest Territories at the Arctic Winter Games in Slave Lake, Alberta, this March?

When do you expect this to be implemented? The objective says "develop and implement" a plan. When do you expect this to be implemented?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just need a clarification on the third line of definitive objectives on page 18-9. I thought the department stated last year that mobilization of career centres to NWT communities were already being implemented. I need clarification on that.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am happy to see the report that I had discussions about earlier in my political career. I am proud that there are some positive directions that will take place. At least, directions for us to work on. It is important for NWT residents, whether you are a parent, student or citizen, to achieve the strategy to the year 2010.

I cannot forget when I went to school, because there were no high schools -- in fact, I think the federal government had a policy not to put aboriginal people beyond grade nine or maybe it was too expensive -- I had to go to school elsewhere like everyone else. When I went to high school, I found it so easy that I declared that by 1970, all Inuit or aboriginal people will have university degrees. You can virtually do grades nine to 11 in nine months. However, the atmosphere changed. The parents were changed by society or perhaps governmental policies. In other words, how to behave towards your children or how to leave them alone and have the teacher become a babysitter. It will be very important that we get the parents back into the process, not just leave it up to the teachers. I welcome this document. I know there are still a lot of things missing, but I am willing to work with this document so that the inevitable situation does not take place. That is depression, recession and lack of development in terms of the economy or human resources. With that, I am very happy that Towards a Strategy to 2010: A Discussion Paper, has been tabled. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. My question is to the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Since the department began to move towards community schooling, there have been concerns from parents and students about the impact this would have on the choices available for students. There was a concern that the students would not have access to a range of courses available. At the larger regional centres, for example, Yellowknife, students can choose between different levels of the same subject such as English 10 or English 13. Can the Minister explain how schools, particularly in small communities, decide which courses will be available to their high school students? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I should have said about $3 million from the main estimates to the revised forecast.