Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I would like to address an issue that is very important to myself as a Member representing the community of Hay River. It is in the area of manufacturing. Mr. Speaker, manufacturing in the Northwest Territories has been an industry that has been around for quite some time. Obviously, as the way the Minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development put it yesterday, this industry has grown in export from $15.3 million in 1998 to $43.6 million in 2002.
Mr. Speaker, I think it is an industry that stands to have a lot more growth in the Northwest Territories. I would like at this time to recognize and thank the then-Minister of Transportation, the Honourable Joe Handley, for coming to Hay River last fall and addressing the issue of capacity building in bridges across the Territories, because with all of the bridges that we are going to be putting in in the next few years, there is a huge potential for increased capacity building and bridge building. The Minister worked out a deal with the Hay River companies that saw an experimental project to build capacity to handle that task, and I want to thank him for that.
In the Finance Minister's opening address, the Minister mentioned that there seems to be an awful shortage of affordable housing in our communities. I know that the Minister responsible for the Housing Corporation, the Honourable Michael McLeod, is tasked with that deal of trying to put as many houses in the communities as he possibly can. I know that from seeing a contract that has just gone out for mobile units or prefab units, that that is one way he is trying to address that situation. I think, Mr. Speaker, rather than putting out a tender and cancelling one of our government policies, which is the BIP, that there may be a better way to do this. I would like to encourage the Minister and this government to look at our partners in industry to see if there is another way that we can come up with prefab units that we can put in our communities and meet the needs that we are trying to address. I know that there are industry partners out there that are willing to take on this challenge and see if we can build these prefab units in the Northwest Territories at a comparable price to the South. Mr. Speaker, I would like to seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.