Thank you for recognizing me, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to provide a little more detail on the information that was in front of us here regarding the $108,000. We should be clear that when we're voting on this, this is an initiative that was not part of our business planning, and over the last while we've made some significant cuts to our department. In the last reduction process, we cut nine positions out of MACA, and we also agreed to reduce our travel budget by 25 percent. This $108,000 is not a position. There is one part-time casual position that we're looking at of $40,000. This money is so we can go into the communities, at least a good portion of the communities that are out there, that are having problems understanding how this funding is going to flow. They have requested us to come in. If we're going to go into the Sahtu or Nunakput or Nahendeh, we have to fly. We don't have those monies in our budget to travel into those communities. We didn't have this as part of our initiative at the beginning of the year. It really makes it difficult, and that's why we've budgeted $58,000 of this $108,000 towards travel and for hotel rooms. That's so we
can explain the program and talk to the communities and help them get ready for applying for this fund.
There's another $10,000 for communications; we need to be able to package some of this stuff up. We need to be able to work with the communities on providing the detail. There's a lot of work in also dealing with the contribution agreements, developing the contribution agreements, providing the materials, and having that submission brought forward in an appropriate manner, and also to be able to retain the information and manage the information, so we can report on it at the end of the day. There is a significant workload that comes with this distribution of the fund. That's why we've looked at providing a one-time part-time position to be able to distribute this money. Without this money, it's going to make it very difficult. All our staff already have a lot of responsibilities, and this would have to be accommodated from within. I'm sure we probably would be able to manage it somehow, but we're not going to be able to travel into the communities; we're not going to be able to provide that information, as the communities are requiring and requesting, without this $108,000. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.