Thank you. I would like to see if I can get an answer from the Minister. I want to speak generally to the virtual onslaught of tolls and fees proposed by the department. When we first saw the Highway Strategy last year -- Mr. McLeod has already made this point -- when you looked at the possible scenario of speeding up Highway No. 3 reconstruction, taking it from a proposed ten-year timeline to a three-year proposed timeline, there were various rationales given for why this was not feasible. Some of them seemed more believable to me than others.
Money certainly was the main one, but there were other things - training opportunities for Northerners would be missed if we sped up the timeline, northern companies would not have the capacity, so southern equipment and labour would have to be used if we went from ten to three years, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. McLeod asked the Minister about this yesterday, and to quote him in Hansard, he said:
"To some degree, we are still doing that. The difference is we are suggesting to the contractors that this is not just a one-time thing. This is an ongoing thing where they can do some investing of their own and expand their operation to allow them to put in the tenders."
What he is saying is now that we are talking about a four-year program that all of a sudden northern companies have the capacity to deal with this. However, in the Highway Strategy, when the scenario of three years was looked at, it was virtually impossible because there was no way we had the capacity. I did not believe it then and I do not think I believe it now. I think it is all about money. When I see this onslaught of tolls and fees, that further reinforces that feeling. I wonder if the Minister could speak to that.