Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I will be brief in my comments. I also would like to speak on the issue of the Keewatin pilot project. I find myself as the Member for Kivallivik representing Arviat and Baker Lake in a difficult situation. I have one community, my home community of Arviat, that is in favour of this project and our sister community of Baker Lake which is against it. Nevertheless, after the comments that were made this morning through the mayors and especially the comments made by Peter Kritaqliluk, it certainly put a lot more light on the issue than what was prior to this meeting. I could be mistaken, but I do not believe prior to today that there was a formal presentation on this issue. It was brought up in a question period at the infrastructure meeting.
Therefore, today's brief meeting provided some more detail as to what the project was all about. As I said, it puts me in a difficult situation because I have two communities where one is in favour and one is not. I guess from my viewpoint, when this issue first came up I was somewhat sceptical and had some concerns. For example, with funding, how would we make sure that my two communities received a fair amount of capital and O and M and so on, so forth, to meet their needs? How would this be accomplished and what structure will be in place to oversee that there will be fairness? These are the basic concerns that I had. In principle, I can support the project and go along with it. There are some basic questions that we need answered, and I think some of them have been answered this morning and some through comments that Ms. Thompson has made this afternoon. I think a further detailed presentation could be made that would possibly alleviate a lot of the concerns and provide more information as to exactly how this whole project is going to work. I believe Mr. Picco indicated that there was some interest in travelling to the Keewatin to speak to the communities. I do not know all the details on this, but that is a possibility that would provide the information we need to make a solid decision. Having said that, I find myself supporting the project after the comments that Mayor Kritaqliluk made this morning and further comments that the Minister has made. We will wait until we have further details Thank you, that is fine.