Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As my honourable colleagues know, the Public/Private Partnerships is a new initiative on behalf of this government. In any new initiative it is going to have its ups and downs and it is going to require refinement as we proceed along with it. We must remember what the overall objective of what we are trying to accomplish. Over the last two years, for a bit of a recap, we have cut significantly from the capital budget trying to meet our Deficit Elimination Strategy. It would be fair to say we knew up front that would cause us a problem with the infrastructure needs of our constituencies. It is clear to me that if we are going to be bringing the capital funding back up to its historic levels, which was somewhere in the region of $180 to $200 million, then we have to find the ways and means to do that. Some have suggested you could just take it from within the existing budget. I simply cannot see how that is at all possible. Most of you know and you have heard Members of this House talk about the need for more money all over the place whether it is in education, as my colleague Mr. Picco talks about; whether it is in Health, that my colleague Mr. O'Brien talks about; whether it is in roads that Mr. Steen talks about, et cetera. We have to find a creative way or a new way to bring about some of the new levels or return to the levels we have become accustomed to in infrastructure spending. We recruited Mr. Coles, who is a well-respected expert in the field, who not only knows, but has researched what is going on in the Maritime provinces, which it is in my belief somewhat similar to our constituency. Also he looked at what was going on in British Columbia, Ontario, et cetera. I am fairly confident that we have some really good expertise on this whole field.

Another concern that has been expressed by a number of my colleagues is accountability and transparency, which are the fashionable buzz words these days. Affordability and I think that, for me, is critical. All these issues, hopefully, we can address as we develop the guidelines and as we refine them as we move forward. At the end of the day, I am hopeful that the process we are going to put in place will meet the concerns raised by a number of my colleagues, both here in the House, privately and, of course, in the numerous meetings with the constituency at large, whether it is the NWT Construction Association, Chambers of Commerce or individual groups.

This is by no means a panacea for all of our economic woes or to solve our economic infrastructure needs. This is just one new policy change that will assist us in trying to accomplish the end that we are all trying to do, and that is to put some new facilities in place with the limited dollars we have. I am open to a frank and free-wheeling debate on this issue, but I hope at the end of today, you can give me some advice and some direction as to what changes you would see if any. I am optimistic we will have support for it, and I am hoping that we can move quickly and vigilantly in ensuring that we get some of these projects moving this year so we can put some people to work, set some infrastructure moving and give some new confidence to the industry and the job market out there that this government has its interests at heart.

Mr. Chairman, I would like to thank Mr. Ootes, particularly, for moving forward on this important discussion today. I will try to answer the questions I can. Where I am not in a position to answer them, I hope you will be tolerant enough to give me some time to bring forward any unanswered questions that I may not be able to deal with today and hopefully by the end of this week and next week we can get on with it and have a comfort level that we can move forward on putting some of the P3 into place and get some of the infrastructures in place.

Last, but not least, I would say as we speak, Mr. Coles is in town in a workshop with all of our senior managers explaining the concept of P3, how we can implement it, et cetera, and we are looking forward to some of the advice and direction that this House wants to give. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.