Mr. Chairman, I will try to make my response short. The concern expressed by the Member, as I understand it, is that he feels his communities, because they are off the beaten path of the oil and gas activity and the main highways, he is feeling that the department does not have any program for highway or future roads that would serve his particular communities.
The department has always operated under the policy that new roads are the responsibility of Indian Affairs. That is simply because we do not have the revenue to do the job, and we have not been given the responsibility from Indian Affairs to construct new roads. However, we have been working with Indian Affairs to address some of the shortfalls in revenues through the winter road systems, through the bridge program that we undertook. We have entered into an agreement with Indian Affairs to construct some new bridges on the winter road in the Sahtu. We received funding from Indian Affairs for this.
To date, we have not received any funding from Indian Affairs for any new roads. The winter road, specifically, was not a new road. It was part of the winter road system. I hope that covers the Member's question.