My question is to the Minister of Finance. I understand and appreciate that the Minister of Finance cannot attend the conference of financial Ministers of Canada that is now occurring, because of the pressing needs of this House. I am sure that one of the items for discussion at this conference will be the economic proposals contained in the federal government's constitutional package. Such a policy could adversely affect northern preference polices such as the business incentive policy. Will the Minister state categorically that he will fight these economic proposals on behalf of the government so that this government cannot only protect the northern preference policies we currently have, but implement even stronger policies?

I am not sure how you define "conclude" in the rules, but I would like to see continued discussion on this report. I do not know what mechanism we need to use to do it. Somebody help us. That is what I would like to see. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It is correct that we must ensure that the civil service feels it is being treated fairly, but the balancing argument to that is to ensure that the people out there in the communities are equally being treated fairly, and in my opinion at this juncture they simply are not.

I would caution you and say, "But let us remind ourselves of the pace at which the communities want to take over these responsibilities." It is important to remind ourselves of that. One of the concerns I have of a more practical discussion would be that given that we are looking at this Beatty report, and some shrinking of dollars as Mr. Pollard has said, there is a requirement to look at ways of cutting and at some ways of saving money, it may be -- and I do not want to complicate the issue even more -- that we have to take a hard look as we phase in and implement this report of the kinds of policies on the ways and means in which we spend money.

If there is less money out there, then maybe we have to find ways and means to make sure there is more money of the less money spent in the North. Are you with me? It may be that, in my opinion, when we take a look at the phasing in and the implementation of this, parallel with that we should be taking a hard look at the kind of spending policies, if you want, and by that I mean things like Buy North only, things like negotiated contracts with DPW as has been done by the Minister of Public Works to my understanding, those kinds of things, I think, have to go hand in hand, if you like, with the phasing in of some of this stuff. Do you understand what I am trying to say? If we have less money, then we had better make sure the less money we have the more of it sticks in the North because we will only have compounded an already difficult situation. I hope that makes sense.

I do not wish to plug it to death today, but all I am asking is, where within the transfer process do the MLA and municipal leader fit in?

However, Mr. Chairman, it does say -- and I think this has a significant impact on the changes that come out of it -- that the regional directors should perform a strong role in relation to the new priorities attached to community transfers. It says they should be key members of the GNWT's implementation group for community transfers. We are not suggesting we approve it en masse, but this does have a significant impact in terms of the concerns that my friend here has, and the concerns that I have with respect to the phasing and priorities at the regional level. That is all I am trying to say. You know the old saying, "to be forewarned is to be forearmed." I am really saying that I do not see this as a small matter. I see this as a fundamental instrument of delivery of the recommendations and priorities that you as a cabinet are going to establish. Again, this particular individual reports directly to cabinet with no line responsibilities to the departments, as I understand it. You may want to change that. I do think it is important, and I will address the issue later on in the coming weeks. Thank you.

While I acknowledge the concerns expressed by my colleague, Mr. Bernhardt, and I am sympathetic about it, I am not as much of a philosopher. I am more of a practitioner. My concern is regarding the process of who makes the decision regarding the phasing in of these responsibilities. To me, there is a contradiction going on in the sense of this report at the regional level. On the one hand, we are saying we need more involvement by MLAs. It says so right here in the report. On the other hand, this report clearly says we need to change the role of regional directors. God help us. They want to give the regional directors more responsibility and, believe it or not, have them report to cabinet.

That reinforces with me that too many decisions are going to be made at the centre, and not enough are going to be made where the problems occur. Surely, on the one hand we want MLAs to be more involved in the decision-making -- and it has been said on a number of occasions by the people in this House -- but on the other hand they say this option is strongly recommended. Are we not, in fact, going back to the way it was 20 years ago by saying the regional directors are going to be the instrument in the region and are going to report directly to cabinet? Where do we fit in?

Perhaps I can approach it in a different way. Today I am not about to suggest to you that we can solve all the problems and say this is good and this is bad within the Beatty report. But there are some obvious things that bounce out at us, that say, "Hey, there is something wrong with this report." How do we find the mechanism where we can contribute to what we feel are some weaknesses within the report?

Let me give you an obvious example, to me anyway, from a regional perspective, bearing in mind there is a need to cut costs, as Mr. Pollard said, and a need to bring departments together and we are all philosophically and very much in agreement. On page 142 of the Appendices it talks about a simple example of health services, and it talks about moving people from the Keewatin to Yellowknife. Maybe this is more cost effective, but I will tell you now, if you went into the Keewatin and tried to sell that, it simply would not sell. There needs to be a mechanism for debate or for input to determine if this is a wise or unwise move.

From a political perspective, if I supported this at this particular juncture, I would, in blunt terms, be -- well it would not be acceptable, let us put it that way. I am just using it as an example because it is just one that jumps out at me. The concern would be, in the Keewatin, that they just want to fill the Yellowknife hospital because it is not full enough. However, I thought we were moving toward the division of the Territories. We have historically dealt with Winnipeg. Have they done a cost analysis of this? Is this the right thing to do? We have linkages; maybe we require our own; maybe we should go to Iqaluit.

I know all these questions are going to be asked on this particular subject, and Mr. Chairman, I am only using it to illustrate a point. There are a number of situations in this report, besides this health issue, that I need to know what mechanism we are going to use, if we are allowed, to negotiate and to ensure that the recommendations and the changes that come about will be, in the eyes of me as an ordinary MLA or this side of the House, in the best interests of the constituents of the North.

I am not sure how committee of the whole works, but my overriding concern is to make sure there is a structure. I do not mean to make it cumbersome for you, but I just want to ensure that the benefits of the implementation of the report do trickle down to the appropriate places whether it is small communities, et cetera. For example, could there be provision in the implementation group for three MLAs to work this thing through or could you have regional representation?

It does not have to get cumbersome. It could be three or four of us on this side. You must be meeting on a regular basis and developing some types of strategies. It seems to me that we are not going to solve all the problems of this report today, and I am certainly not about to try to address it. It has to be addressed over a period of time. If it is going to be addressed over a period of time and have maximum benefit for northern people, then I think there has to be some provision for ongoing input by this side of the House.