When we talk about community empowerment, I think we should be thinking about sharing our pay cheques with those people. I do not think we can expect to run any
corporation, or any organization well on a strictly voluntary basis.
Just a last comment on something we have heard over and over again. We have heard it said, I would say I have probably heard it said about a hundred times, that, with respect to community empowerment, mistakes are going to be made. I am wondering why we do not talk more about the opportunities of community empowerment. Maybe we should talk about the positive side, and ask questions, and set goals, and say, is community empowerment going to result in things such as less income support, more economic development, addressing our social issues of drug and alcohol abuse. Are we going to be able to attain goals such as that through community empowerment? I think if we focused on those sorts of issues instead of the fact that mistakes are going to be made, I think that community empowerment might be more palatable. Maybe people would be even more willing at the community level to buy into it, if we could hold up those opportunities a little bit more, and not scare people.
Mr. Henry, I believe, mentioned the other day that the communities that have the most empowerment at this point in time, are the ones who have an economy, and the ones that are the least dependent. I think that while we are looking at cut-backs, and so on, we also have to consider that maybe one of the most empowering things that we can do for communities is in the area of training and job creation and creating an economic base, and I am not really sure how we will do that. There is talk of job strategies, and training programs. There are benefit impact agreements. I think it is part and parcel of community empowerment. People have to have an economic base. They have to have a job. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.