I’d like to recognize Blake Lyons, the president of the Yellowknife Seniors’ Society, an ex-city councillor and a constituent.

Not the TSC upgrades; I apologize. The HR system upgrade. Are there ongoing costs related to that upgrade, and is that included as part of the $716,000?

Mr. Chair, this question is going to sound an awfully lot like the last question. In the '07–08 Mains you had a total budget of $716,000 under Contract Services and $458,000 under Other. Under Contract Services your Revised Mains are $116,000 lower, yet this year you've come back to the full amount of $716,000. Under Other you're at $458,000. You dip down to $207,000 by way of the Revised Mains, and now you're back up to $368,000. Granted, we don't have previous years, so we don't see much of a trend here, but why did these numbers dip in the Revised Mains and why are we putting them back up...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. You may have answered it, but I just may not have understood or heard it properly. In the 2006–2007 actuals under Fees and Payments you had $545,000. In the Main Estimates for ’07–08 you had $302,000, but your Revised Mains were quite a bit lower than that. They were $117,000. This year you’re coming back with exactly the same amount as the previous year’s Mains under Fees and Payments. Can you tell me the history there? Because I see that it gets high, then goes down, then drops to the Revised Mains, and now you’re putting it back up to where it was next year. Was there...

I just want to follow up on that question, Mr. Chair. Seven total were proposed; five were accepted? Does that mean two of them were from the regions and they weren’t accepted, or does that mean that seven additional ones were proposed and not accepted?

Mr. Chair, in listening to the Minister's statement, I see that he's indicated that there's been a decrease in four positions, which is technically true, but there were actually five positions eliminated as part of the reduction exercise, all in Yellowknife, and then there was one position created in Fort Smith. So, technically, five positions have been eliminated as part of this reduction exercise.

I'm not as upset or as disturbed by the elimination of these five positions, as they were all vacant. I'm more concerned on a territorial level about eliminating positions where there are actually...

I was wondering if I can get from the Minister some sort of commitment as to when something might actually happen with these houses. The longer they sit vacant, the more they cost us. At a time of fiscal restraint it seems like a bit of a poor use of our public funds. Can I get some commitment or a timeline on when we might see those assets disposed of in some way?

My questions today are to the Minister Responsible for the NWT Housing Corporation and relate specifically to the houses that were constructed in Fort Res that now sit vacant. It’s my understanding that at least three of these homes were built by the Housing Corp. through the home ownership program and that, once constructed, there were no eligible candidates to actually take over those houses. So they’ve been sitting vacant for two years.

My question to the Minister is: what criteria are used in determining which community these homes are built in, in anticipation that they will be purchased...

A lot of Members have already gone on record discussing the proposed budget and the process that has been undertaken today. Given that today we may be voting on the first and second readings of the budget, I thought it would be timely for me to talk about the process as well.

It has been suggested by Cabinet that the 11 Members on this side of the House have been adequately briefed and involved throughout the entire budget process, including the cuts themselves. When it comes to reductions, the 11 Members prepared a list of potential reductions, not focused on job cuts, and provided them to...

To the principle of the bill, I won’t be supporting the bill today. When the Premier came to us originally and told us that we were in some financial woes and that we had to redefine how we do business, I was actually quite optimistic. I thought, okay, great, finally we’re going to be able to break into the government — you know, find some efficiency, stop wasting money, stop bleeding out money.

I was also optimistic, when we asked the Premier across the floor, that jobs would be the last resort. I was hopeful that that would in fact be the case. When the Main Estimates came forward, it became...