Mr. Chairman, I am not the Minister responsible for Finance. I am the Minister responsible for Transportation and I will take the Member's question.
We are not building this road to help out the oil and gas companies. What we are building this road for is to give job opportunities and business opportunities to Northerners. They would be involved in the exploration activity. There is no suggestion here that just because an oil company wants access into the region that we are going to build a road for them. They have the opportunity like everyone else to apply for a land use permit and build the road themselves.
The point here is that there is more than one user. This is going to be an identified ongoing need. Furthermore, as Members are well aware, the department has a mandate to connect all communities to our highway system. This includes Wekweti. We are not trying to avoid that.
What the funding identifies is what we will need for this year. There is a lot to follow to this, in order to bring that road up to winter road standards. There are going to be more additions to this for next year, but that is in the business plans. This is what you would see in the business plans.
What we are asking for here is for this year, and we have already identified some of the costs and how we are going to recover some of that cost this year. For instance, $94,000 is available from existing sources and it breaks down: $50,000 will be contributed by Public Works; $20,000 by Housing, reflecting a decrease in annual resupply costs for fuel and housing units; and $24,000 from the Transportation Assistance Program, which will be transferred from Public Works to the Department of Transportation. So the $101,000 is less $94,000. Thank you.