I know those will be addressed, not this year, but I think the planning will start this year, but they
will be addressed in 1995. Let me tell you, not only my constituents are grateful. When I told my children who go to that school, they were also excited and are looking forward to those renovations. They say their old school will be fixed up to be a better school. I am certainly grateful for that. I would continue to encourage the Department of Education to look at our high school that also needs renovations.
The problem that we seem to have in Fort Smith is we certainly have the infrastructure and I know that many of my constituents are grateful for that, but Fort Smith is a very old community. It took years to build up that infrastructure. I recognize that some of our infrastructure is now getting old and has to be addressed. I would like to thank the Minister of Education for addressing those renovations that are direly needed to deliver the education to our children.
I want to advise the Minister of Education, though. I do have some serious concerns in respect to the South Slave Divisional Board. I have spoken to him about it and I certainly have confidence that he will address these concerns in the immediate future. I have concerns to the way funding is being spent. I am feeling that some of these funds may be not properly used for the delivery of education to the schools. I feel that it is my responsibility to alert the Minister of Education. I am grateful that he has done a review on the divisional board, however, I recognize his review won't be done for some time. I certainly am going to request that certain items be addressed in the immediate future. I have also spoken to the Minister of Finance on this and I would like to thank him, as well, for indicating his support to address these concerns in respect to the South Slave Divisional Board.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I just have a few more items to address. One is in respect to the housing strategy. I certainly support it. I have always been on record for supporting the implementation of the housing strategy. However, the way the housing strategy has been delivered and implemented in my community, has not been acceptable. I said it last spring when I did my reply and I will say it again, all the government did was take their houses and shift them over to another department, whether it was the Department of Education, through Arctic College, or they had taken these houses and given them to housing. They are still paying the same type of costs that they were initially attempting to get away from. The way these houses were sold caused a disruption in our market. It also practically closed down a real estate agent.
We had a commitment in this House that any surplus housing would be sold on the private market, through a private real estate agent, and not one house, to date, has gone through the real estate agent. But, here in Yellowknife, many houses went through the real estate agents. What is being done in one area is not being done in another area. I've stressed many times in this house, no matter what you do, it is the method, how you do it. As long as you do things in a fair manner, I don't believe Members will be concerned. But, when they are done inconsistently and not fairly, there is no doubt they feel responsible to express these concerns.
With that, in closing, there is one critical issue that is of concern to my constituency. I left this issue for the last. It is the tanker base. I have noted, in discussing the capital plan, that there seems to be some reluctance of Cabinet, in making a decision of the type and size of tanker base that they need for the community. Whether it be CL-215s, hercules aircrafts or whatever type of aircraft that they need for their fleet to fight forest fires. I would urge this government to attempt to make every effort to make a decision on what type of facility you need and be able to allow the community to build the facility. The Dene and the Metis are very grateful that they are going to be allowed to build this with the condition and the commitment that the government will lease it over a long period of time. I believe that the Minister of Finance should encourage more of this type of capital construction because it allows our dollar to go a long way. It also allows a sense of ownership that instills pride within the community and it for people to see what they own and not only the government owning everything. It also saves our government a tremendous amount of dollars that we identify as capital needs. I would certainly like to encourage the government to go more into a lease purchase concept in constructing capital items in the future. Wherever it can be done, I would encourage them to do so.
With that, Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank Members for patiently listening to my comments that have been very important to my constituency. I would also like to take the time to thank Members for their support, whether it's the ordinary Members, or the Cabinet, and I certainly would like to, on behalf of my family, wish you all a very merry Christmas and a prosperous and healthy new year. Thank you.
---Applause