Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Fellow Members of the Assembly, I have spoken on this subject before. Members, those who were here with us a little while ago know my position well on it. I have been dealing with this issue since the early 1960s. I was in town council in Fort Smith in the 1960s. At the time, we were quite in favour of a southern link through Fort Vermilion. As a matter of fact, there was, at that time, even a very good winter road that went to Fort Vermilion. There was a bit of a problem with some of the hills, a couple of places where they needed some work done on the bridge, but short of that, that road wasn't in too bad of shape and would have taken, at the time, very little to have made that connection. There was already a right of way cleared to the park, past Pine Lake. There were a couple of places that needed more permanent structure for a bridge.

I agree that, economically, this would be good for the territories. Tourists that I have spoken to, numerous times, including those who do come all the way from the south to our city here in Yellowknife, are reluctant to drive that long drive back. Tourists prefer loop roads where they can go in one way and out another. By opening this road, this would certainly mean an increase in tourism potential to that area. In turn, more tourism dollars flowing into the north would benefit economically the Northwest Territories, the community of Fort Smith.

My Transportation friend knows my position on this, and I know he says he is going to have to take some money out of our budget to do this, but I think there has been some commitment made. Perhaps not so much commitment, but certainly suggestions from senior Ottawa people. I don't want to pigeonhole the Prime Minister, but he has shown an interest in looking at this project again. We must not forget that he was Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs at about that very time that that road was in use back in the 1960s. He had been to Fort Smith and the late Mayor Kaeser had bent his ear many times on this subject.

Without prolonging the debate, I would support it wholeheartedly. It is good for the Northwest Territories. It is something that has been long in coming. I think that, in turn, will put more dollars into the territories, where we can do more things with those extra dollars that we do get. Thank you very much.