Thank you, Mr. Chair. There was a comment made earlier that I want to talk about, a few comments that have made. I will respond to the specific area of concern in a few seconds. One of the MLAs said that Mayor came in to one of the Ministers offices and requested to take capital dollars one of the MLAs budget and that happened. I do not know which Mayor that was. I think it would be a good idea, since I deal with all the Mayors, to know which Mayor this was. And there is a process already in place. We do not just move capital dollars to here and there just like, you know, without any process. There are some skills in the department to deal with those issues.

Another comment that was made I know it was in regards to me when I was talking about the water sewage problems. There was a comment I had made earlier in the spring about that each community should, if it is a community and because they are human beings, we should give them a water sewage facility to have a healthy environment. That did not mean that if it is a small community of 60 people or 100 people that community should get a high school or a hospital.

I was just talking in regards to water and sewage when I said that small communities should have these too. So that is a statement I wanted to clear up.

In regards to the funds in Fort Simpson, funds were voted in the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs capital plan for the Fort Simpson alternate island access project. It started back in 1995/96. They were voted in. And because of local disagreement over the project this caused the village to reexamine its priorities.

Because I am the Minister of Community Empowerment, one of my priorities is that local bodies in the communities learn to work together and if they can learn to work together, for instance, in this community the Band Council, the Metis Nation and the village Council had to get a body together and tell me what their priorities were.

The village had to reexamine the issue for the alternate island access project because when they started to talk about this if you have been to Fort Simpson they are on an island. There is a road going into the island.

The community felt at that time, if there was an emergency or if there was a flood, they would not be able to go through the only road out to the mainland. So they thought there should be an access road on the other side of the island. Because the Metis and the Band Council were not involved in that discussion, there was local disagreement into that, like that was really the priority of the community.

So, that was started in 1995 before I was Minister of this department. When I came into the picture, I had to try to get the community to work together. So I told them that if they can become one body, the Metis Association, the Band Council and the village, try to work together and tell me what they wanted to do with this money that voted in 1995 and I would give it to them.

Because I felt since I am the Minister of Community Empowerment one of the issues is that I want a well community. And that people should learn to work together. So they came together and became a tripartite working group and told me that the access road to the mainland that the village had wanted was no longer a priority. But that because they had started developing towards on the mainland instead called the Wild Rose subdivision. They said that, because they wanted to have a community so that they can get together more often because there is three different groups and have a bigger centre. And that the village would contribute towards this project and operation and maintenance costs associated with the facility.

I agreed to that since they were working together as a group for the benefit of the community, that they should use this money for the recreation centre which was a community centre. And that is where that was. I think it was a good decision on my part. Because with community empowerment we have to get the band councils, the village councils, the Metis councils together to form a group and we have to be willing to work with them. And that was their priority for the community to have a wellness centre. And this is what happened.

This was already voted in 1995/96. It was not something that just happened out of the blue because the MLA came to me. It is because I was working with the community for community wellness and community empowerment.

In the west as you know it is more complex than in the east. We do not have band councils in the east. We do not have Metis so it is a lot easier to get the community to work together. But we still have to get the housing associations and the different department to work together in our communities. And in the east the departments can get together in the community and tell me this is their priority. To promote community empowerment and community wellness in that community I will do my best to meet their needs.

One of my priorities in the west is that these groups will have to work together and tell me what their priorities are and I will do the best I can to meet that need. I did not take that money from somebody's riding to put it into this riding or to that community. It was voted in before I was the Minister. Thank you.