Just a couple of comments. I know the Minister has been given a lot of accolades today and a lot of bravos. I also want to say thank you to the Minister and his staff in the department for the work they have been doing. There has been a tremendous change in the past year. There are still areas, as we all know, for improvement, in terms of client services, the ability to respond to certain requests and the timing of responses. There are some outstanding projects, and you are well aware of them, in the Inuvik area and I know that the department and the people involved are trying to get them done.
I'm fully supportive, obviously, of the capital projects that are going on because, as was mentioned, especially in our area, tourism is becoming probably our only industry, other than government, that we can consider a growth industry and we require facilities to be able to cater to road traffic, especially. The work that is being done in terms of using local contractors is fairly good. The record is good. I just wanted to make those comments. The Minister is aware -- and I notice in the departmental overview that the focus in on the Dempster Highway in terms of tourism development and the parks -- that the linkage between us and the rest of Canada for tourism is through the Dempster Highway, mainly, and we have to strengthen our relationships between the Yukon and this territory.
There were some initiatives made this past fall in that regard and I wanted to commend the Minister on those and hope that he takes the information and requests from the regions and continues to assist them in doing all we can to enhance and maintain some sort of economy in the western Arctic. Mahsi.