Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the Member has a legitimate concern in whether or not we will be able to address our future ability to pay back. What we have done is our estimates are based on 1999 traffic volume and we should take into consideration that, I believe the information that I have been given was that at that time, BHP was the only mine that was really operating in the Slave Geological Province in 1999. Diavik was coming on stream. Snap Lake is not on stream yet. So therefore, those did not really reflect in those volumes in 1999.
In fact, they are quite low and conservative estimates of the traffic volume for the future. As we all know, the traffic volumes have tripled since 1999 to accommodate Diavik coming into production and, more than likely, they will keep on for another year, but then they will start slacking off and then possibly another mine will kick in by that time.
The point here is that the department, who put this together, just presented it to Cabinet as a proposal. The proposal to put forward borrowing capabilities is something that should really be addressed to the Minister of Finance, because that is his department that is going to be handling the borrowing and the payback initiative here.
The only part that we could probably respond to is how it would fit into our legislation. However, again, that is something for the future. We have not even started drafting this legislation yet. So if I may suggest, Mr. Chairman, maybe the Member would be better to redirect his question to the Finance Minister when the Finance Minister is dealing with his aspect of the budget.