Mr. Chairman, what the government is proposing and the manner of how they consulted with the communities I agree with. One must not forget these small communities, particularly in ridings like Nahendeh and also mine and also the eastern Arctic which has small communities. They have been lacking all these basic infrastructure.
Even if we go with what is being proposed by the government in terms of priorizing at the community level, they will never catch up because the other communities which have all the basic infrastructure in place will always be ahead of them.
That is the point I am trying to make is that all the communities should have all the basic infrastructure in place so that everybody is at par so that they have all the basic needs. Then you can implement the community consultation as to what should be required, etc. A lot of the smaller communities, for some reason or other, have been neglected and, although they have been pursuing capital projects to meet the basic needs they have always been lagging behind.
Even the new system that you are coming in with does not address that. What I am emphasizing is that those small communities should be priorized within the department to get all these basic needs. Once we have it all across the board then we can look at distributing capital items for municipal and community affairs when the community is consolidated and priorized at the community level. The way we are doing it now the small communities are always going to be left behind. They will never catch up and that has always been a problem. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.