Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to take a few minutes to make a comment about issues that are important to us. I want to talk about how to get the money from the federal government. Not that I have the answer, but I wanted to focus on that issue.
I listened with a great deal of interest when the Member for Frame Lake described past conduct of the Minister in the House. I am hoping that he will show as much dogged determination to keep going after the federal government for money. I hope that the Minister does not mind when I try to emulate his behaviour and act like a dog with a bone with meat on it.
Mr. Chairman, I think that the need for more money on our highway system, not just Highway No. 3 but all of the North, is very important. I do not think I need to go any further on that. I also believe that there is a real issue of safety on Highway No. 3 just because of the sheer volume of traffic that is on the road, especially during the winter road season, when there are hundreds of trucks going there, trying to meet their operations deadlines. I would not want to be responsible if there were ever major casualties on that road.
Mr. Chairman, I know that the Minister and a lot of Ministers in this government are relying heavily on assistance that we may be getting from the federal government. Given what has been said in this House in the last two weeks by various Ministers, I am not sure if we should be relying so much on that source.
I am beginning to think, for example, about the lack of money coming forward for the clean-up of the Giant Mine site and the reneging of the commitment that the federal government had on the Protected Areas Strategy. Also, Minister Collenette's speech which had all of the municipal officials up in arms, his philosophy about funding infrastructure, and so on. Those are only three of the latest things that cause me to be concerned.
I am not entirely comfortable or optimistic that we are going to be able to get any money. Also, given the fact that the federal government has announced a major economic development strategy for the Atlantic provinces they are going to be pumping a lot of money into that region, and yet in this part of the world, we have a lot of private companies investing upwards of a billion dollars and the federal government will not give us one penny to build the roads or train the people to take advantage of the industry.
My frustration at the lack of action by the federal government is endless. Mr. Chairman, I have to ask the Minister if in fact he has been aggressive in pursuing this option. I have not heard it or seen it in this House. I have not seen him saying anything publicly. I would like to ask the Minister for a diary of what he has done as the Minister of Transportation to get money from the federal government in the last six months.