Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. In the statements made yesterday, impact on housing, the Minister mentioned that the federal Treasury Board made the decision. He also mentioned that he had been working, and as my colleague put it, you had a leap of faith put into several federal Ministers that they will consider the arguments you made, and approve funds. However, that did not work, and my knowledge of the federal Treasury Board is that it is made up of federal Ministers, and I think it is chaired by the Minister of Finance, so something is not getting through at that level. I think more effort needs to be made, to lobby not only one or two, but a whole range of different Ministers. There is also a huge ripple effect of this, and it is going to impact this territory. This ripple effect is on our capital budget, and our O & M budget, because not only is the housing affected, but any plans for new roads, new lots, all municipal services, the revenue, proposed taxes, construction of new houses, and, of course, the huge impact on local labour, local services, and local contractors is also effected. I think it has been raised several times, but I will raise it again, there is a need now for this government to identify what the cost impacts are, what the cost impacts are today, what are they going to be tomorrow, and next year? We are going through an O & M budget now, and the proposal is that it is paving the way for next year's O & M budget. In several months, we are going to be dealing with the new capital budget, and if nothing is done quickly, it is going to have severe impacts. The effect is not only on single dwelling family sized units, but many of the multiple type buildings that have been going up across the north for single parent families, seniors' housing, and single person units. All of these are going to be affected. I have a couple of suggestions, that I think the Minister, and the government, are looking for on how to deal with this. We just went through an exercise with all the aboriginal leaders, and the constitutional process, here in the territories, and Canada wide, and they combined forces and efforts to deal with that issue.
I think, immediately, we should be getting these same leaders together, and put an organized lobbying effort on all federal Ministers. That should be done very quickly.
Another suggestion, in terms of how we are going to spend the money, how are we going to get maximum value for the dollar, or get the best bang for the buck, is several of the aboriginal organizations do have some investment money, through their claims, and I think that some deals can be made. We can at least think about it, talk to these people. Maybe there is something, from an economic point of view, since we are looking for new investments. The native organizations, and business people, are looking for investment opportunities, and I think there is a big opportunity here to explore, in detail, and vigour, this avenue. Thank you.