Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, some concerns were raised in the committee report with the telecommunications industry in the Northwest Territories and where the department had planned to do a submission to the CRTC hearings in support of the general idea of a high cost subsidy area. The committee agreed with that intent. As well, I would like to raise my own concerns here. The fact that in the Northwest Territories, we have some smaller companies who have proven where NorthwesTel said it could not be done. For example, in Inuvik, New North Networks installed a cell-phone system when NorthwesTel said it could not be done. We were too small of a community. It was not cost-effective. A small company has come in and been able to do it. It is operating and functional.

The concern is that yes, I agree with the idea of a high-cost serving area, but it should be open to all businesses that are providing a service in the communities, not only tied to NorthwesTel. Hopefully, that was the message that got through.

I think communications is a growing area. Services can be provided by small companies in a superior way. Hopefully, that message came through and the Minister can confirm that or speak to it.

Overall, in the Department of Public Works and Services, there has not been significant change from the interim appropriation to the main estimates. It has basically carried forward with what is there. A number of issues were raised from the report as to some of the concerns we had and Public Works and Services being seen as a service provider and having to carry its business in that sense. In fact, although it is a government department, it is providing services to all the other departments and needs to line up in that way to sell its services to other departments.

We know there are some problems in the area of information management. That needs to be improved on. We know the department was huge at one time, and has been downsized over a number of initiatives, from privatization to user-say/user-pay and so on. We know the department continues to struggle internally with the changes that continue to come its way, but I think it is something we need to see happen in the sense of the department is a service provider. That needs to be very clear. They need to be clear in what it can do and how it can assist other departments.

One thing that continually comes up is the area of cost overruns on projects. The department explained in committee that in fact, many times changes to projects that are already in the books come along late and require additional funds from departments. It seems to be the Department of Public Works and Services is laid with the brunt of blame when it comes to not meeting the targets. We suggested that it be laid out quite clearly that it is the departments that come forward with submissions and changes to the programs or capital that is initially put into the main estimates. Sometimes those main estimates are of a lower class than what they would be if they were further refined. That is another area of impact.

We always find costs go up as details are clarified between a client department and Public Works and Services. With that, I will end my general comments and wait until we get into detail. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.