When you look at major public infrastructure, as I said earlier and I will say again, it requires significant federal involvement. How do you get federal involvement? You get federal involvement when they pay attention to issues such as Dome Petroleum with the pipeline, et cetera.
As Mr. Lewis has said, in the 1970s there was a great deal of interest because the federal government felt that a highway infrastructure would be complimentary to a pipeline and to the oil and gas exploration which was taking place in the Beaufort. I suspect this was the political thinking at the time.
As to the current thinking, I am really not up on what the current federal government thinking is. I have been in this portfolio for three months. I have not had an opportunity to meet with my federal counterpart. I suspect there will be a new one after the next national election. I would suspect we have to convince the federal government that there is a real need for this project and it is going to benefit and meet the aspirations and needs of the Northwest Territories residents.
I am not one of these individuals who is convinced you necessarily need to have an objective at the end of the road. If we had done that, would the QEW have been built, would the roads in the provinces have been done? The federal government cost shares and subsidizes the Newfoundland ferries, et cetera. What we need to do is have a receptive federal government. I am not suggesting the current one is not, but we need to have one that is. We have to get on the national agenda. I have said this on a number of occasions. It is my intention, with my limited expertise, that when we do the update on the NWT strategy which Mr. Lewis and others will be involved in, to move transportation onto the national agenda. To do this, we have to be able to determine what we can realistically accomplish.
As we move into the 1990s with looking at the federal government restraint, I do not know. I have to think optimistically that we have the capacity and the ability to convince the powers that be, whoever they are, that there is a need to take a hard look at what we are doing in this country, whether it is a road to Izok Lake which is specifically designated to a mine, or whether it is to meet the needs and aspirations of the people in the Mackenzie Delta. I am not sure if this answers Mr. Lewis's questions, but this is how I feel about it.