Thank you. Mr. Chairman. I agree that we cannot continue on this subject forever without coming up with some type of mechanism for dealing with the current situation, as well as the future situations. It has been suggested that Yellowknife gets block funding. I do not really understand the situation, Mr. Chairman. There are parts of my constituency that do not receive block funding. I understand fully the implications of Dettah or N'dilo's capital projects being deferred or deleted.
Mr. Chairman, I also understand that Ministers have to manage. And I also understand that we are trying to balance the budget. And that sometimes cuts have to be made. However, we have spent a lot of time and effort into the capital plan. Every year we will be doing that. I believe that what we agree on has to be fairly rigid. But it cannot be an iron-clad guarantee that nothing will move.
I am a strong believer in community empowerment. As a person working for the aboriginal community, I have fought for it for years. So I cannot agree that a community cannot change its priority, and want another project.
At the same time, as the Premier has alluded to, there should be consultation with the community, and with the MLA for that community, if projects are going to be deferred or deleted. If the community does not agree, however, I think there should be some kind of appeal process. Perhaps there could be a joint committee in Cabinet and the MLAs to decide this. We have had joint committees working on various things since we have come to office, and they work quite well.
I also liked the Premier's suggestion on how to deal with the current situation with the project that is ongoing in Fort Simpson and I agree that we also need some type of a process for new projects. I am not sure whether the other MLAs are satisfied with the rationalization for the projects that have been moved, but, certainly an objective observer, they seem reasonable. But we do need process for new projects for the future and I believe that is what we should try to focus on now rather than continuing on talking about what has already occurred and what I believe was done with full substantiation for most of the projects. Thank you.