Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the Department of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development, we have the Business Development Fund. We have people within our departments who are there to work with the communities once they start their businesses. If they ask for support, that is what they are supposed to do.
If that is not what they are doing, then I need to know about it and I need to work with our staff, with businesses in the communities and perhaps with the MLAs, to see how we can best provide the services they are supposed to be providing.
As a Member in this House and as a Minister, I always believed that as a government, we are here to provide programs and services to the people in the communities. If that is not happening then I need to know about it. We are looking at it with this department.
There is also the Community Futures organization that has just been put in place within the last couple of years. The idea there is the different businesses that are existing, the smaller businesses in our communities, have been asking for the types of services that perhaps the honourable Member is concerned about, which is once the small businesses start, they may need additional help and dollars to do something and expand and enhance their businesses. The Community Futures organization is there to provide that service. If there is a need to help the smaller businesses become more successful, the Community Futures organizations would have representatives from all the surrounding communities in the region on this board. They are there to provide that service.
We in RWED have taken funding from headquarters and put it into the regions for the Community Futures board to work right at the community level with the people in the community. It is two years old. It is new. There may be a learning experience or problems there, so then we have to look at how we can improve on that. Thank you.