Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I speak in favour of the motion for a lot of reasons. We see smaller rural communities not getting any infrastructure because other larger centres have infrastructure. A good example is I have five patients in Yellowknife right now. Rae-Edzo, a number of years ago asked for a small hospital so they can house their patients and their own people can be amongst them, so they do not have to worry about accommodations in Yellowknife or Edmonton or wherever it is. They are told they cannot get a small hospital because Yellowknife has a hospital.
A number of years ago I was on a board that asked for an airport. They said, "You do not need one, Yellowknife has an airport." Things like that are being used, standards of larger communities are used.
Another good example that I use is on road infrastructure. Money is allocated on population or usage. Safety is sometimes a second or third priority when they do that. That gave us a lot of reasons to create this committee. We are frustrated with not getting anything in our smaller communities. Other communities are being used as examples of where we can go if we want help.
All in all, this committee is going to be out there to look at all the programs that are being put in the communities or not put into the communities. Another good example is the Mobile Addictions Program. Once a year, they parachute in a couple of counsellors and try to help the whole community of Rae-Edzo consisting of 1,864 people. How do you help people with a parachute-in team for two weeks? It does not help anybody.
How can we help anybody when they do not understand the languages of the counsellors when you treat them in Hay River or in Alberta? There are people out there who do not speak the language but have the problems. We ask for facilities and we cannot get them. Well, we have one 30-bed one over there, and a lot of beds are empty. Well, some of those beds are empty because the programs are not working over there. It is the management of the programs themselves that are not working over there, but because the facility is there we have to use them, whether it works or not.
There are too many examples out there like that. The biggest problem that came up and got me to decide to support this is we have a new committee here, the capital acquisition team, whatever they call them, people who are living in Yellowknife all their lives and deciding what goes into my community or what goes into the Sahtu or what goes into the Delta, because they have never been in those communities. They do not know what it is like. They figure it is just the same as Yellowknife. They figure if they put a water treatment plant in, it is going to look like the one downtown here. It is going to be a massive, giant water tank with a beautiful building on top. They are scared to put one of those in the communities.
They have never been in the communities but they decide on all of this and that is why we need to have a group of people out there looking at all aspects of how they come to decisions on giving infrastructure programs, the whole works.
This committee should be looking at all of that and coming back and saying, look, these are the areas of concern. This is an area that they have not looked at. Maybe the population is there, but the need is not there. The need is higher in different areas. We have to look at all angles of how we provide services and infrastructure to the whole Territories.
We swore in this House here that we would represent everyone in the Northwest Territories, but when it comes to programs, services and infrastructure, we seem to be leaning towards the larger communities, which is not all of the Northwest Territories. The rural communities committee would be representing 27 communities. If there is a need or a decision that is made by this House that we have one or two other Members from the other ridings, well, I am in support of that. We do not have to restrict it to four, but the need is there to look at the way we do our programs and our infrastructure, how the needs are assessed.
O and M dollars sometimes exceed capital dollars. O and M dollars going into highways in Yellowknife that exceed capital dollars. O and M, $10 million. That is a lot of money for O and M. We are looking for $10 million to do 14 kilometres. It is just the same.
Things have to be looked at and I think that this group is the one that can do it. We have to change the way we are giving our services and our programs. I support this motion and I will support it if that is the wish of the House. Thank you.