Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this summer I had the opportunity to drive the Dempster Highway from

Inuvik through Fort McPherson all the way to Whitehorse and at the end of this trip I had the opportunity to meet with the Minister of Transportation for the Yukon government. As of a few days ago, that government is no longer there. The Minister is no longer there, but however, there is on going discussions between the officials of both departments, the deputy minister of the transportation from the Yukon government as well as his counterpart, my deputy minister, have been meeting on a regular basis. After the new government is formed in the Yukon, then we will sit down with the new government and see if the conditions we have laid out are still there.

Mr. Speaker, the Dempster Highway, I am told will remain open, however, there is discussion about the level of maintenance that is currently on that section of the highway. It was discussed by the Yukon government, they were looking at, they are also looking at budget reductions in the Yukon, therefore, they were looking at this section of the highway for reducing the level of maintenance and they were looking at different scenarios on how to do that.

We were at that stage in the discussion when the election was called in the Yukon and at this point in time we do not know who the new Minister is going to be, but as far as the discussion between the officials, they are going on and, hopefully, once we know who the new Minister is we will try to sit down with them as soon as possible and resume our discussion. Hopefully, they will have changed a little bit of direction by that time and that the type of level of maintenance they were talking about reducing will not be as much as they were asking for, hopefully. But this is, in all our discussions, this will take place. Thank you.