I should have been clearer in my response. I apologize for that. What I was indicating was that it is a negotiated item, so it was agreed to. The methodology was agreed to and it’s been left up to the Government of the Northwest Territories to do the annual adjustments. The northern living allowance was not an item that was on the negotiating table. The last time we negotiated an agreement with the Union of Northern Workers, they felt that they were more interested in the salary portion of it, the increase in the salaries, and they were satisfied with how the northern living allowance was...

Mr. Speaker, if that is internationally to lower the cost across the board, then our government is prepared to look at that particular tax for fuel into small communities that we’re delivering ourselves. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, petroleum products operate through a revolving fund. There’s a Revolving Fund Act, which means that the fund itself is self-funding. So the only way that we’re able to deliver fuel to these communities is by charging what it costs to deliver fuel to the communities.

If we were to subsidize one community, which we are allowed to do up to 95 percent of the cost, we would have to take it from another community. We’re allowed to charge up to 105 percent of the cost of delivering fuel to a community.

We try to keep it fairly balanced and do it at the true cost, 100 percent of the cost...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I feel I have to speak on the bill again. I have spent a lot of time talking about Bill 18, a bill that is going to do nothing more than consolidate a portion of the Weledeh riding to the Tu Nedhe riding, combine the two ridings together. I don’t know if the small community riding is now joined in with the Yellowknife riding or if they’re taking the traditional riding of Yellowknife out and joining it with a small community riding outside of Yellowknife.

I would like to read a bit of what the elders parliamentarian Ms. Violet Beaulieu has presented during the Elders...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you know, Rocher River is still part of my riding of Tu Nedhe, so I’d like to recognize my auntie Vivian Kelly, who originated from Rocher River, and also her daughter, my cousin, Linda Wood. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I am currently looking into a specific request from the Inuvik group, with the idea of coming up with a solution that is satisfactory to this group and also the firefighters, as they are captured within the same section. So this is what we’re doing.

It sounds to me, just on the value of what we’re talking about right here, that it is important individuals playing an important role and that the Government of the Northwest Territories should do all they can to try to support both of these groups. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The special leave provision is part of the negotiations between the union and the Government of the Northwest Territories. If the leave, as laid out in the Human Resource Manual for firefighters and the CASARA people is a special leave, as the Member indicated, they would be following what is negotiated within the policy within the special leave requirements. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, unfortunately I don’t have all of the cost breakdowns of all the types of advertising that we’re doing. Our initial intent was to do a couple of things. One was to contain the cost of advertising and also not spend a lot of money on advertising that was not being used. Like I indicated, only 3 percent of the ads that were in the paper were the reasons that individuals were applying. So this is what we’ve managed to do. We’ve managed to maintain the cost. We’re not increasing the cost of advertising across the board, but we are making some special provisions to make sure that we’re...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Some of the positions would be advertised in the paper. There were a lot of issues coming from some of the smaller communities that indicated they were having difficulty with e-recruitment. We recognized that we have a system where we have indicated to individuals that we would be posting jobs in various places throughout the small communities and offices, municipal governments, with government service workers, with career development officers and so on. But even at that point, there were still some requests to advertise some of the jobs back in the paper, so we’ve made...

There are no planned amendments to that specific section of the Public Services Act, the section that indicates that the Collective Agreement will not deal directly or indirectly with any payments that relate to owner occupied rent space. Anything to do with the cost of housing is not a part of this agreement, so there is no plan to amend that. We are bringing the Public Services Act forward for a couple of minor amendments at this time. If committee wishes to expand upon the review of the Public Services Act, I am sure the department would be willing to have that discussion. Thank you.