Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think I can understand where the Member's original question came from now, where he referred to a phone call. As the Minister, I did receive a phone call from a contractor in Inuvik asking us if the department was competing with them in the crushing business. I told him that as far as I am concerned, as far as I know, the department is not interested in competing with him. That was the content of the phone call.
As far as what relation that phone call had on whether he got the contract or not, that contract had nothing to do with us, the Department of Transportation. That was strictly a contract between the contractor and the town, as far as I know. It related to whether or not he or someone else could have access to our quarry site.
It is my understanding that the town tendered that particular contract with reference to our quarry site. We did not have any input into whether or not the town had contacted us before they put it in the quarry site.
We therefore -- the only involvement we got in at that point was whether or not there is access to that particular quarry site. Therefore, we went and reviewed whether or not we could allow someone, who is a contractor for the town, access to that particular quarry site for crushing. That is where we responded to the town with a letter saying we denied him access to the pit because we have not established whether there is enough material in that site to serve the needs, the long-term needs of the department.