Yukoners can soon expect to see the government order an official hearing into the proposed $35-million to $40-million power line extension, says the Minister of Energy, Mines and Resources.

Archie Lang said last Wednesday that Yukoners can be assured the project being advanced by Yukon Energy to extend the line from Carmacks to Pelly Crossing, and then on to Stewart Crossing in phase two, will receive full scrutiny.

There will also be full scrutiny of a proposed agreement to supply the new Minto mine with power from the extended grid, Lang told reporters in a conference call from Vancouver. He was there attending last week's annual Mineral Exploration Roundup.

Lang, however, said he did not know when the government would issue the order instructing the Yukon Utilities Board to conduct a project-specific hearing into the line extension, a project for which Yukon Energy has already spent $1.5 million, and continues to advance.

The order, he said, will have to come from Justice Minister Marian Horne, and he was not in a position to speak on her behalf.

Horne was unavailable for comment.

Cabinet spokesman Albert Petersen said last Friday the order for a hearing into the line extension will come within the month.

Yukon Energy president David Morrison has said repeatedly the Crown corporation only needed the approval of its 20-year resource plan from the utilities board as permission to proceed with the line extension.

The board reviewed the 20-year-plan at a public hearing in November and issued its approval of the plan Jan. 15.

Morrison has said Yukon Energy will continue on with its decision to build the line extension until it's ordered to stop.

Time, he has insisted, is of the essence. If Yukon Energy wants to meet its obligation under the Minto mine agreement to deliver power to the mine site by the end of next year, it needs to begin building the extension this summer.

Janet Patterson, the spokeswoman for the corporation, said Friday that Yukon Energy has spent $1.5 million to date on the line extension project.

That includes planning, engineering, environmental assessment and public consultation during the community tour of the 20-year resource plan. The Yukon government has provided $450,000 of the $1.5 million through a decision by cabinet.

And work is continuing, Patterson said, noting the company is planning to issue a tender call any day now for design and engineering of the line extension.

She pointed out just last Thursday, Yukon Energy made its second submission on the line project to the Yukon Environmental and Socioeconomic Assessment Board. The board, Patterson indicated, has said it now has all it needs to make an assessment of the power line project.

Yukon Electrical Co. Ltd., the territory's largest private utility and the largest distributor of power in the Yukon, did not participate in the November hearings into the 20-year-resource plan.

The company told the utility board it would have been a waste of time and money to do so since the Yukon government had already indicated it would be using cabinet authority to order project-specific hearings into each major initiative outlined in the 20-year plan.

The premier has said several times that his government will exercise its authority to order such a hearing. The Yukon Party, he has said, does not want to repeat the boondoggle that began under the former Liberal government that resulted in massive cost overruns for the Mayo-Dawson City transmission line, a project that is still being sorted out by the courts.

While the utilities board did approve the 20-year plan, it also stipulated before it gave its full endorsement to the transmission line, it wanted to review the power purchase agreement between Yukon Energy and Sherwood Copper.

The agreement was supposed to be completed by Jan. 31 under the terms of the tentative proposal released before Christmas.

Patterson said it was not completed by the deadline, but it's expected to be concluded soon.

The agreement commits Sherwood Copper to provide a $7.2 million contribution toward the Carmacks-Pelly Crossing segment of the line extension, which is estimated to cost somewhere between $17 million and $23 million.

It also stipulates Sherwood Copper will pay the entire $3.9-million cost of the 27-kilometre spur line from the Klondike Highway into the mine site south of Minto Landing.

Under the proposal, however, Yukoners are being asked to provide the upfront financing for Sherwood's share of both the main line and the spur line. The company is to begin repayment after the first two years of operation.

Some parties, however, have expressed a concern that if something went sour with the Minto project, Yukoners could be left on the hook for power line bill.