Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to the P3 initiative, I believe my riding has been working for a while on trying to find new ways of building infrastructure by trying to find interested groups or parties to look at the possibility of building and then leasing back to this government. That was what we looked for at the construction of the Chief Julius School. It was going to be considered after it burnt to the ground. They have looked at other areas in regard to the construction of not only office buildings, but looking at the infrastructure for schools and looking at the needs of this government which could include highway maintenance to building bridges to privatizing airports. We also have to keep in mind, at the end of the day, all these proposals are still going to be a burden on the expenditures of this government, where you are going to have to pay for leases or basically pay for services. We have to keep in mind those long-term obligations we find ourselves in, which we are financially sound, and we are able to pay for those new initiatives but also to continue to run the government with delivery of programs and services.
The reason I say that is we find ourselves a lot of times in this House where we are making statements to the government and the government comes back to us, telling us, you tell me where to get the funding. If we end up putting another level of bureaucracy in place, it is going to be that much harder for us to try to find new funding for social programs such as health and education. We are going to try to find a way that we can continue to look at new initiatives, but also to keep in mind we have to have a healthy, educated workforce to carry out these activities in the north.
In regard to the whole idea of Private/Public Partnerships there has to be clearer ways of monitoring and evaluating to ensure people with deep pockets, who have a lot of funds, especially in southern financial institutions, do not find a way of monopolizing what we are doing here in the north. It has to be developed in the north and produced in the north by northerners. So that we find a way to help those communities and the business people in those communities and regions to ensure we are not only looking at a long-term infrastructure for this government but also as economic jobs and opportunities that come along with these ventures, when they come to be, especially in regard to constructing large facilities such as schools, hospitals and highway construction. There has to be a guarantee that there is going to be those spin-offs left in the communities in regard to janitorial services or employment for people in the communities.
The other thing I would like to state is, this has to be good for everybody, not just the larger centres where we are talking about major hospitals being built or major office buildings being constructed or whatever. This has to be designed in a way that it can be used in the smaller communities so they too can have an opportunity to have these things they may have wanted in regard to redesigning their schools, expanding their school facilities or to look at ways to improve their airports. Those small communities have to have the same opportunities as the larger ones. This has to be spelt out. When this is distributed, I want to know is it going to be distributed by each community in the ridings or is it going to be one community designated for the whole region? In the case of Inuvik, there are calls for a hospital, but what about other communities within the Inuvik region? What do they get? Is this just a one-shot in the arm where, basically, funds are there for the hospitals in Inuvik and Iqaluit? If there is nothing there for the other communities, I will not support this initiative. Thank you.