Mr. Chairman, last year the community of Fort Providence did the right-of-way clearing for sections of the highway between Yellowknife and Providence, and another one between Providence and Enterprise, and the job was well done. One of the things that I ran into last year, Mr. Minister, was that the community of Fort Providence negotiated a contract to do the clearing between the Fort Simpson junction and on toward Yellowknife. They decided to use a contractor from out of the community, Fort Liard to be specific, but it eventually went back to the community and a local contractor was used. I have a letter from the contractor.

I do not know if there are going to be further negotiations with regard to clearing the right of way, but the community is still interested in doing that. In order not to get into controversy, one of the conditions for negotiations should be, "Okay, we agree that we will give you the negotiated contract to do the right-of-way clearing, but also that you use the local contractors, as opposed to using outside contractors."

I got into quite a bit of hot water over this from the contractor. It eventually went back to the local contractor, but it started out that they were going to use an outside contractor. The contractor wrote to me just to prove a point that it is a lot better to use local contractors and give consideration to lowering the cost per hectare, and if it was negotiated with the local band you would save a lot of money by doing that. I would hope that if you are going to do the same thing with the arrangement, it would be the same thing, that you express that in order to alleviate controversy -- if the band is going to get it then they use a local contractor.

Mr. Chairman, the other thing is with regard to Mr. Wray's report on the Transportation Strategy. Is the whole intent of this for the economic benefits, as well as the employment benefits, mobility benefits, safety benefits, increasing tourism --is it still your department's target to complete the section between Fort Providence and Fort Rae; complete the reconstruction and pavement by 1997?