Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in order for us to, as a government, consider a gravel stockpile and to bring in equipment or to contract that out, we need to have specific projects. I recognize the Member’s need to work towards building a road system to the source of gravel. It is a problem for the community of Tuktoyaktuk. We recognize that. There has been a large request for a large contribution from the community that we have considered. We are not able to accommodate it. We have continued to realize that there is a need for a reliable source. However, in order to have a...

Mr. Speaker, the gravel revolving stockpile fund was wound down in 1999. Investment for gravel requirements have been built into the municipal community government budgets. In the case of Tuktoyaktuk, there are no specific projects that we can point to at this point. I don’t have any listed that require gravel. We don’t have any plans to bring any stockpile into that community either from the Department of Transportation or from MACA. Having said that, there is a need across the Territories for assistance to look at the issue of gravel. We are working with other departments to put...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there has been ongoing growth in private and commercial vehicle use due to resource development. The climate is warming and bringing more precipitation and more variable weather patterns. Our transportation infrastructure is aging. The severity of each of these factors is expected to increase into the future. These factors are forcing the department to increase the operation and maintenance efforts.

Mr. Speaker in the past, the department’s own maintenance forces worked a standard 40-hour week, Monday through Friday. Maintenance requirements occurring in...

Mr. Chair, I guess to answer the first question about whether this money is enough to clean up the site, no. The Finance Minister has indicated there is more to do. We are not exactly sure the extent of the contamination. The swimming pool was built on a fuel storage site that was owned by the government. We are not sure if it was our government or the federal government. We are looking into that at this point. It may be significant; we don’t know. The winter weather didn’t allow us to explore far enough to see how badly the contamination was, but it is a huge area.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, our policy as per our agreement with the federal government allows us to recruit up to 85 percent of these expenditures. In the case of Good Hope, it was towards eight houses that were damaged by flood and there was severe contamination by sewer and other chemicals in that area. They were declared unfit for human habitation. We decided to pay for 100 percent of the repairs and allow the homeowners to go back to the houses. These people didn’t have HAP houses, so we will be paying for anything over and above 85 percent. Our policy only allows us to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have already heard from the Member; he sent us a letter. We have flagged this as an issue we'd like to discuss with the NWT Association of Communities, and I'd rather have that discussion before I make any decisions whether we're going to move forward on this issue or not. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thanks to the Minister for a little clearer answer. I agree with the Minister that coordination is a big part of it. I wasn't questioning sending the patients south to the city, my questions were based on sending people to Yellowknife and that seems to be where there's a real lack of communication, Mr. Speaker. Too many people are being left out in the cold when they get to Yellowknife. They're sitting at the airport for three hours. We can talk for hours on the stories we hear. So I'd like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services to demand his...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm not questioning the medical care that patients receive once they get to the hospital. You know, we have one of the best medical systems in the world. But my colleagues and I, and it's an argument that we've had for a long time, it's the actual getting to the hospital part is where we have concerns with. My understanding is that the authorization now for medical travel is made out of Yellowknife, referred to by Inuvik. So I'd like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services, where did this direction come from to authorize medical travel out of...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Of the $32 million the Minister mentioned in his opening statement, I would like to know how much of that is going towards the 112 units. I am getting the feeling that this is starting to sound like another subsidy program. It almost appears to me like a second tier public housing type deal. I want to know from the Minister how this is affecting, or if this is affecting, the other programs that the Housing Corporation runs. I am sure they had a program called the Independent Housing Program, which was almost along the same lines. It just seems like they are...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Last year, going through the same exercise, I spoke to a number of issues and concerns. I see this year I am going to be speaking to almost the same issues and concerns. We go travelling to the communities and it never fails, even in our day-to-day work in our constituencies, I am sure there is not a day or a couple of days that goes by that we don’t have people calling with concerns with housing, not so much the Housing Corporation, and the way the programs are delivered. I commend the Housing Corporation, as I did last year, for putting a lot of these programs...