Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Minister of Health and Social Services may be able to provide more of that background as to the specific causes, or at least the best estimate under the department’s case, the causes for these type of increases. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Voytilla can provide that level of detail. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the reference to the previous bill might have some impact on us. It wouldn’t be in those communities that are served by the petroleum products division. Where we get our fuel and bring it into the community that would have an impact on our schools and our health facilities in a sense that if we’ve got a better price, then that affects that community. Where we are in the communities that are serviced by the private sector, that would have no impact. Thank you

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we stated, it would take us a few months to do our work where we feel we could be in a position to provide Members more information on whether we think we’ll have to make another adjustment for the 2006-2007 budget. As the normal process is, after year-end we’ll have to go through the normal works of our budgeting exercise to come up with year-end numbers and after that we’ll then be able to come back with the results of the 2005-2006 year. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Weledeh, that Bill 18, Appropriation Act, 2006-2007, be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, as I stated earlier, we did provide departments relief through previous supplementary appropriations to cover their increased costs for I guess a certain time period where we’d come to a position where we had to increase our budgets without adjusting the long term. It was felt at the time that because of the volatility of the market, that we had to give it some time to see if, in fact, things were going to continue to climb or settle down. As we see it now, the prices did get very high there for a bit and have come down a certain degree, but we feel...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this increase that we’re asking for here does cover the 2005-2006 fiscal year, but we have not made adjustments in the 2006-2007 fiscal year. After the work is done on reviewing this, doing some of the tracking of historical data there, we’ll have a better idea of where we think we’ll need to be and at that time come forward with a request for more funds if that’s the case. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. More just to the fact of the upgrades that are listed here. As I stated earlier, when we, as a government, get into leases for either office space or clinical space, when we initially enter those agreements and move in, we, as a government, still pay the cost for fitting them up for use by the departments. As well, in mid-term if we decide to change the use of that facility or put additional requirements for the use of that facility, we again are responsible for them. So that is not a change in the way we've done things about the leases we have in place to date.

I...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the Northern Strategy money that we’re flowing out to communities for their use, we have set some guidelines as to impact on future expense by government. I gave them a fair bit of latitude as to what they have selected as being important to them and where they would identify this money for, what they would identify the money for. We’ve got a number of examples of projects that have rolled in. For example, on the Hay River Reserve, they are looking at an arbour, a cultural camp, recreation equipment, and an adult education centre. They are looking to...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I did give out some of the reasons for why we feel there’s an increased cost. One, departments were able to cover some of the shortfall from their own budgets. But for more of the detail, I’ll have Mr. Voytilla provide that level of information.