Mr. Chairman, the manner in which the department is dealing with capital items for the Mackenzie region is not working. I will tell you why. One of the problems that currently exists is we do not have a board to make sure that the needs of the region are put to the department's directors as required. This is part of the problem. The capital items are not placed as a priority by our government because there is nobody in the region to push for them. We have no board. This is the main reason. My colleagues on both sides of me from Deh Cho and Nahendeh will agree with me. If we had an adequate board in place then those individuals sitting on the board would assess the region properly and priorize the various needs and communicate this back to the department. Then the
department would consider them appropriate. This is not happening. This is why certain capital items are absent from this document.