Thank you, Madam Chair. The money in the community capacity building fund is money that's available over a three-year period. The Member is right; that this is a new way of doing government. We listened to people; they said they wanted to have control over their decisions at the community level, and we made that available.
We will help them. We will help them primarily through the MACA staff, but also other staff, if they request it of them to help set their priorities and determine how they may want to invest the money. MACA is also offering to help them, if they need to have a facilitator work with them on determining those priorities. If they are not able to make a decision by April 1, 2006, then we could step in and decide we'll do it the conventional way; we'll set the priorities for them and determine how the money is going to be allocated. But, Madam Chairperson, we don't want to do that. We would sooner let the communities make the decision and we'll act as facilitators. But if someone can't, then, definitely we would just do it the regular way, and we would listen to their needs, and tell them where we're going to put the money.
Can we help? Yes, we can each help, Madam Chair. We can help as MLAs. I believe all Members have a schedule of how much money will be allocated to each of the communities. We can, as MLAs, sit down with our community, talk to them about the criteria -- MACA has made that available -- and ourselves be facilitators on how this money can be spent.
Madam Chair, this is a new way of doing business, so it's new for all of us. But I think it's a responsible way that lets community leaders lead, let's them decide if they want to spend it on a capital project, if they want to spend it on helping to reduce energy consumption, or whatever it may be that's sort of in their control. They can choose anything, as long as it's spent to the benefit of their community. Thank you, Madam Chair.