Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Later on this morning I will be travelling to Fort Simpson to attend the Community Justice Forum that has been going on for the last two days. Today will be the last day. Later on in the day, in the committee of the whole, we will be talking about the budget of Economic Development and Tourism.
I would like to say something about the economic development in the Deh Cho region, and Nahendeh constituency of six communities. The people in the communities, every time I travel to the communities, are very interested in the whole area of economic development. They feel that they have been left out, up to this point, and they would like to be more involved with that.
I would like to urge the Department of Economic Development and Tourism, to concentrate more on the smaller communities and change their attitude towards people, so that the people in communities have the opportunity to be provided with programs and services from this department. I, also, would like to let the House know, that the Deh Cho Tribal Council has, for one and a half months now, hired an economic development coordinator to help the communities in the Deh Cho region. Their approach is a community-based approach to people in communities, what they want. This coordinator will help coordinate, and the idea is that they could work with the Department of Economic Development and Tourism to help these communities. This is the peoples' way to tell the government that they are very interested in economic development, and they are doing something about it, themselves, by hiring a coordinator. I would like to urge the Department of Personnel to work with these people so that economic development would happen in these communities. Mahsi Cho.