Thanks, Mr. Chairman. My colleagues have covered off a lot of the bases that I was concerned with on this issue as well. There is the aspect that I would like to underline on accountability. We are in an age, politically and economically, where the demands from constituents and the systems that are around the Auditor General. We are living in multitudes of fishbowls and everybody wants to make sure that they can see everything that is being done and that there are checks and balances that will make sure that if and when problems do occur, and let us recognize that they will. That the issue is not so much why did this happen, but it is how are we managing our way through it.
The particular case that we have here where $405,000 is being requested against the total debt of $450,000 approximately is quite a stretch for me, Mr. Chairman. We are going to use public money that is in pretty short supply around here to satisfy arguably 85 or 90 percent of a community's debt problem. That, to me, does not really indicate that the department is looking hard enough internally to find other existing resources, or that the community has been worked with to find out what kind of resources it might bring into play. We are really going a very long, long way to restore the things in the hamlet and I think that it is just pushing it a bit too much to take that much of the public purse to satisfy this problem.
With three other communities also having difficulty along with Rae, that is about $1.2 million in debt problems the communities are having, and Mr. Bell pointed out very clearly what's going to be the consequence if one person gets it or another and another is in the wings.
Mr. Handley and Mr. Allen have tried to demonstrate that there is a new regime in place, that there are new and effective mechanisms to turn this around and make sure it does not happen. I am optimistic that these will work, but I think the proof is going to be in reports that we get six months or a year from now on how these communities are doing and whether they are turning a corner.
If I have a further question to add to the discussion, Mr. Chairman, it would be, can the Minister tell us if a $400,000 recovery plan of public funds is really realistic given that the total debt is $450,000? Are we not going too far? Thank you.