Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, on the first point the Member raised as to the Public Works presence in Fort Smith, I am not aware that there are any plans in place to reduce staff in Fort Smith. We did have talks as to trying to identify where most of our capital projects have been taking place and where we should have our project office located in relation to this work, but we have not firmed that up yet.
As has been the practice in the past, we normally have some discussion with the Members through the committees before we make any decisions that affect positions in their ridings. At this point in time, we do not have plans to relocate those positions.
With regard to Public Works taking on some of the project officers' duties relative to Housing Corporation projects, that is something we certainly could consider. I will make a point of having the department look into this and discuss it with the Housing Corporation. Perhaps we can respond to the Member after we have discussed this with the Housing Corporation to see if in fact there might be some benefit to this idea.
With regard to POL, at this point in time we have the same concerns as the Members, in that there would be a tendency from the private sector to pick the most profitable communities for privatization and leave the government with only the smaller communities and with the same debt to wipe out but through a smaller group of communities to spread the cost over. We are well aware of that. We have been making this one of the main points that we would take into consideration in any privatization.
We also have stated in the past that Public Works is basically waiting on hold right now until the review is done on exactly what we are going to do with NTPC and whether NTPC will take on responsibilities for POL. However, we still have been accepting offers or proposals from the private sector with regard to privatization of communities, either individually or by region. The overall thought here is that although it may seem as if it is unfair that we are holding these proposals until the review is in place, in fact these proposals will be put on the table to compare with what NTPC is offering. That is the reason to have these in place, to compare one option with the other.
As I have said in the past, one of the main factors governing these offers is that we must have the political support from the communities and the MLA for the region as well. We are hoping that by the spring there should be a review done with NTPC and we should be able make some movement on the POL privatization if we are going to do it. Thank you.