Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I, too, have similar concerns. I understand that Ministers have to be allowed to manage the departments. I also know that we are trying to balance the budget, and the Finance Minister has asked the Ministers to see where they can trim more dollars from their budgets. But at the same time, we did spend a long time last session working out the capital budget. I think that simple courtesy at least should dictate that when capital items are deferred or totally deleted, they should be done with input from the affected MLA, and the communities.

At the same time, I think that if a community changes its priorities, then perhaps that community, along with its MLA should be able to talk to the Minister involved, and see if perhaps, the money should be able to be spent on another project. If the community feels that it is a greater priority than what is being proposed, but that should be available to everybody. If we agreed to do that type of thing, we also have to agree that we are not going to be indicating that some things are for safety, or for some other prime concern, and then all of a sudden, once you get to money allocated, then, change your mind.

One of the things I think that is not clear, is how the Ministers arrive at how these capital items are awarded to the various communities. Do each of the Ministers do their capital budgets in total isolation? Do they just say, there is this many communities, and 15 of them have community halls, and these ones do not, so we will give the community halls over here? Or do they look at the primary building facilities? If every Minister has their own budget and they allocate it the way they want, then some communities might not even have a health centre, but yet they might be awarded a community hall, or an arena. Those are the things I think we have to look at.

I know other Members have already brought it up that we entered this process trying to be as co-operative as possible but capital plans are changed. Thank you.