Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, right now the specs that are used to set the standards for which the communities can purchase equipment are set by our department and our technical people. The specs are set in relation to what the equipment will be used for. We have a lot of communities that would like to use the equipment for other things and, in a lot of cases, would like to go to a bigger piece of equipment or a piece of equipment with more attachments. That's always caused some concern.
If, in the case of a community where there is a need or desire to go beyond the standards we set, if they are willing to pay for the difference, of course we will accommodate that and we have done that on a number of occasions.
Following the introduction of the New Deal in 2007, the communities will have the ability to set the specs that they desire. We will not be in the picture anymore in terms of setting what they can have and what they can't have. That will be up to them.
In terms of funding for the pipeline preparation, we, as a department, are funding the municipal governments, the governments we do business with, the ones that carry out and deliver our services or the services for the municipalities. The Member is right; we do not provide funding for band councils or the M‚tis councils. We have provided funding to all the municipalities in the North. They have all drawn down the initial base funding, and all of the impacted communities, or at least three-quarters of them have drawn down on the second drawdown for additional dollars. The funding for band councils would have to come from another source. That doesn't come from us. Our requirements are to fund the municipalities that deal with us.
Having said that, we have people in the regions that will be providing advice. They are not restricted to only deal with the municipalities. They can, and have, worked with the band councils and M‚tis councils. We don't anticipate that they will have any new monies into the communities. So this is what our funding restrictions are. That is what they are going to.