Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the highway strategy is an initiative of this government to look at the Four Road Project. This is the direction of this government, to look at what is there. We acknowledge there are numerous transportation needs across the Northwest Territories and we must continue to look for different ways, new and improved ways of improving the transportation services we have.
The focus now is to maintain what we have, as best we can and focus on new initiatives which could produce significant return for investment in the short term. With the different discussions over the years of the Mackenzie Valley Highway extension that has been requested for many years, we are going to take a look at that. We are taking a look at the recent request from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk that has been there for a while. There is some push from that side, so we are going to take a look at that. The Slave Geologic Province Transportation Corridor from Yellowknife north into the rich mineral areas to the north of us, with the gold mines that are there, the potential of the development of the diamond mines, we have to take a close look at that as well. We are taking a look at that and looking at the reconstruction of the Highway No. 3 between Rae and Yellowknife, to see if we can speed it up. These are the four initiatives the government has laid down.
We are planning to have stakeholders' meetings in three of the areas. For the Slave Geological Province on June 4, 1998 here in Yellowknife, I would like to bring the bands, stakeholders, and metis locals, the mayors, business leaders and MLAs of the area, and get them together to have a frank discussion of what it would mean. We are also planning to have another stakeholder meeting in Norman Wells, June 9, 1998, to discuss the Mackenzie Valley Highway. We are having a get together for the Tuk-Inuvik road in Inuvik on June 10, 1998. Perhaps the honourable Member, Mr. Krutko, who is invited to this meeting in Inuvik can raise his concerns at that time. It might be an opportune time to get his concerns raised. Other than that, we have set the course on this strategy. If there are any additional requests, we will be receiving it all the time. We just received a request from Nahanni Butte recently of putting in a road, the resources into the Nahanni area for the Cadillac Mine area. There are other interests out there who are vying for the priority. My suggestion is to bring this concern up at the Inuvik meeting. Thank you.