Thank you, Madam Chair. I am not quite sure if we are saying the same thing or not, but I will get my two cents' worth. Having had the opportunity to work and live in small communities like Tuk and Arviat, I like to think I have a fairly good grasp and understanding of community empowerment.
Firstly, I want to make it very, very clear, crystal clear, that I am in support of community empowerment. Having said that, I do have some reservations and I think we have heard from most of the people who have spoken today and over the last few weeks that there are reservations and concerns. Briefly, my concern is that we provide adequate training for the people in communities so that when they take on these responsibilities and these jobs, that we are not setting them up to fail. We have to provide, within reason -- I think we all know that we have limited resources in our budget, but there has to be enough monies put into the kitty so that they can run their show in an efficient and effective manner. If they get into trouble, there has to be some flexibility to help them in the system.
As Mr. Miltenberger said, this is not a new initiative. It has been around for a long, long time. I think the sad commentary here is that it is very, very unfortunate that this initiative did not take place, did not occur when this government was a lot more healthy and flush with funding. Here we are now providing the communities with the opportunity to take on these new initiatives and to take on these additional responsibilities, but we are saying we are going to let them take it on but they probably have to run it on a shoe string, or close to it.
In closing, I will just say that I will work very hard with my two communities, and I know they are interested in community empowerment, to ensure that they do succeed and that they get whatever assistance that we can provide through this Assembly again to ensure their success. Thank you.