Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the cost of the cutback that this department has to take in this fiscal year, we are not building any new infrastructure or adding on or extending. We are renovating and upgrading existing facilities so that we could extend the life of it for safety and so forth.
Extension of airports is one of the requests that is very common among some of the communities. Upon listening to the request, what we have to do here as a department, is to begin to start taking a real close look at how to accommodate those requests.
In this current year, we have nothing in the plans to extend any of the airports that have been requested, but we are going to have to look in the future to see how to accommodate those requests.
At the present time, I am told that the existing airports in the north are adequately serviced by the aircrafts, the critical aircraft that are designated to service these communities. If there is a requirement for more service, what I am told is that these critical aircrafts will increase the amount of time to go into the communities to provide that service. In regards to extending it for whatever reason, maybe economic reasons or maybe regulatory reasons, then we need to hear those arguments. In regards to the regulatory reason to extend the airports, we have a reprieve until the year 2010 to do that. We are going to have to start planning for 2010 now, so that once the reprieve is over, we know what we do at that point in time. But for economic reasons, the airline companies are the ones that are providing the service. What I am told is that the aircraft that goes into all these communities are providing the adequate services necessary for those communities. Based on those arguments and based on the reasons for cutting back in this department, it is not in the plans for this year. Thank you.