Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I think we have to put it into perspective. I mean, we have, up until last year, $185 million in the capital budget. That is roughly about 6,000 projects. Out of 6,000 projects, occasionally adjustments have to be made. As in any corporate entity, in that even though you have a plan, it is like building a house. You have a plan and your spouse decides they want to change the one toilet to two toilets, it is no different in the capital plan. The changes get made as a fluid document. I said yesterday and I will say again today that the concern seems to be in three areas -- certainly in two that we have heard -- one is in the road that Mr. Antoine has been alluding to, two is in the community empowerment component with respect to the community hall, and I believe the Premier has addressed that by saying we are prepared to pull that back and go back through the process, and of course the third one, I believe, and it has not been articulated yet, but was the concern with respect to the nursing station in Gjoa Haven versus Arviat.
When you are dealing with 6,000 projects, there are going to be some things where we have to make adjustments. I think that is one of these adjustments that was made. We followed the Financial Administration Act correctly. That is not to suggest for one minute that the five year capital plan is not an important business planning tool because it is.
What I am saying is that it is not unusual, if you are dealing with -- and my colleague here tells me it is 14,000 contracts actually, between big and small ones -- contracts of that magnitude and that nature and those numbers, there will be some adjustments made and they have to be made by the management team as such. Provided there is substantive justification for it, FMB votes on it and moves forward on this. I understand the concern out there, but I am suggesting that it is not unusual, when you are dealing with a budget of this magnitude, that adjustments will be made as the exception rather than the rule. I think it is important to say that. I know my colleague's concern and he addressed it to me privately, and I think it is a legitimate one. There are occasions where there is the exception rather than the rule. I think that is an important distinction here in this debate. I would suggest to you that as we move along, when we look at these exceptions to the rules, we try to look at it within the overall budget and if there are some projects under budget and over budget, you adjust things on a regular basis. That is just the way you manage government and the way you manage projects and the way you manage money.
I would want to be very clear to my friend and colleague, Mr. Roland, that in this particular case and in other cases, because this is not an isolated one, there have been other cases, it is the exception rather than the rule. Thank you.