Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this was one of the areas, that category, all departments had put in for new initiatives during our original business planning process and with the fiscal information we had at the time, we directed all new initiatives be parked for the time being until we knew what our fiscal situation would be as a result of the federal budget, and this was one of the new initiatives within the Department of Executive. So they did try to initially come through the business plan process, but because of our fiscal situation we had parked all of the new initiatives until...

Thank you, Madam Chair. To my left, I have Mr. Sandy Kalgutkar who is the director of budget evaluation; to my right is Mr. Charles Tolley who is the manager of budget development. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Member is right; we had looked at the recommendations committee had made in a number of areas and went back to departments with a discussion what was requested. It was felt that there still needed to be some investment in this area for what was required, and we can go to Minister McLeod for the detail to substantiate that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Weledeh, that Bill 12, Public Health Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the information we’ve been provided is areas that staff positions have been involved with in preparation for pipeline activities is community profiles have been accomplished or completed for half of the communities in the impact area; identified community issues and concerns for inclusion in the GNWT general submission to the JRP; ongoing liaison with community governments during negotiations of the SEA, including feedback on proposed methods of addressing the issues; assisted community governments in the development of proposals for the delivery of...

Yes, Madam Chair. Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 1, 2007-2008 requests authority for additional appropriations of $58.169 million for operations expenditures and $78.898 million for capital investment expenditures in the 2007-2008 fiscal year.

The request for operations expenditures includes $14.037 million for investments in new initiatives for priorities identified during the 2007-2010 business planning process. Major items include:

$5.5 million to support initiatives identified in the GNWT energy plan and Greenhouse Gas Strategy. Of this amount, $2.4 million will be funded from the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Weledeh, that Bill 8, Supplementary Appropriation Act, No. 1, 2007-2008, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we work with the Department of Human Resources on our recruitment and retention side closely. They have some dedicated staff that work with us. We do, internally, as well, within the department of working towards what we can do and that example I gave earlier about going to colleges, universities, along with our own recruitment practice we have with our own Nurse Graduate Program. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don’t have the vacancies that we have across all the health authorities on me at this moment; I can get that information. What we have done, for example, in trying to address this, is we’ve worked with authorities on how we’re going to use agency nurses. There is a shortage yet; we still will use them from time to time, but what we’ve worked with authorities on is the fact that if agency nurses are going to be used, it is to ensure that our facilities stay open, not to do a top-up, as was happening in a number of stations. We continue to work around...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First and foremost, we have to make it clear that within the Department of Finance we have no control over what the industry does in this area. The only place our government has an impact is in POL, or petroleum products division within Public Works and Services where we supply to communities where there is no private sector. Here in the North, the rest of the communities, the only impact we have is on the fuel tax side. That hasn’t changed, but I will request the department go back and look at the changes and then we’ll have to send an inquiry into some of the bulk...