Mr. Chairman, I was going to echo Mr. Koe's words. Do not tell me that Fort Simpson is not hurting, or Fort Smith, or Inuvik. I think the other thing the Member has to take into consideration is that when we do decentralize, we have to move to those places that have infrastructure and all of those places do.
As I have pointed out on the Standing Committee on Finance, when you move to those larger centres, you are creating strong regional centres that will ultimately create strong regions. Surely people must realize that when community transfer takes place, that is when those small communities will start to get some things going into them, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, the Member has to realize that Fort Simpson, is too big to be small and too small to be big. They have been having some terrible times in getting going and what we are trying to do is create a centre there that will get larger and will spill out into the rest of the region.
Another aspect that you have to take into consideration is that having these strong regional centres, Mr. Chairman, does provide for good transportation links, good transportation links surely are the basis of good economic development in those particular areas. I realize that the Member is frustrated.
I would point out that he is incorrect. Baker Lake was announced at the same time as decentralization, that it will be receiving a training program for airport fire fighters. So the Member is incorrect in saying that nothing is going to Baker Lake.
Also, Mr. Chairman, announced at this particular time was the fact that in Fort Smith we would support the maintenance facility for the C.L. 125s in Fort Smith, and that had nothing to do with decentralization. Mr. Chairman, we just took that opportunity to make those announcements.
What I am telling you is that this is part of an economic plan for the Northwest Territories and I would like to bring to the floor of the House the fact that the Member who has just been speaking, Mr. Zoe, is only days away -- his Dogrib Nation -- is only days away from signing a major deal with a Crown corporation of this particular government in which there will be ownership by the Dogrib Nation of two hydro dams in the Northwest Territories in that region. There will be tremendous spin-offs from that, Mr. Chairman, not only for the Dogrib Nation, but for this particular area as well.
So the Member may be disappointed that he is not getting anything decentralized to his area but he is featuring in another aspect of our economic plan which is the ownership, the operation, and the maintenance of two hydro systems from which we will buy power. It is not as though they are going to build them and we are going to haggle about the power. We are committed to buying the power from those two projects and I anticipate that that will give major economic stimulus to the Dogrib area.
I will not go any further, Mr. Chairman, but I would like to point out those facts. There are other things going on in the Northwest Territories that may not be contained in this decentralization plan. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.