Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d like to make some comments for the record and kind of get a sense of how the Members will be voting.

I’d like to state for the record, in terms of the decision around the Fort Simpson Airport, Mr. Chair, that the potentially affected employees are proposed for ’09–10. We would be having some further discussions in the business plan in the coming months, in terms of the potential issues here with the Fort Simpson Airport.

For the record — for the people of the Northwest Territories — we do not contract out any airports. We contract out services. When you contract privatization — let me be very clear to people — that’s not taking ownership of the airport.

We still maintain ownership of all 27 airports in the Northwest Territories. We have contracted out at 21 out of 27 airports in the Northwest Territories — to bands, to local aboriginal companies, to northern companies, to hamlets. They have done a good job. Twenty-one out of 27 can’t be wrong, in our eyes. We have looked at that. I

have asked my

department to go back to see what the level of service was, and not to downgrade the level of service at those airports. That’s our number one priority in the Ministry of Transportation.

We looked at all the airports. For the airport in Fort Simpson, for example, in 2004, the number in terms of business was 3,061, compared to Yellowknife at 44,065 or so. The airport in Fort Simpson is not as busy as we thought it would be. Mr. Krutko is right.

Hopefully, when we have a good signal from the Mackenzie Valley Pipeline in terms of their offers, in terms of economic development happening, then we would see an upgrade of our airports.

We have talked to other airport service deliverers in terms of the way they’re doing work. They are talking about the potential of economic benefits with their local aboriginal, local northern, local municipalities in terms of taking care of the airports for us. We have high standards in those communities.

The reduction will happen as we potentially put it in for 2009–10. We are going to have to come back to a business plan with the Members here and talk about it. I have talked to my officials, looking to see whether we could look elsewhere.

The ferries contract operations are totally different from the Fort Simpson operations, which we were talking about. It’s two different situations; it’s apples and oranges. The Fort Simpson ferry operations were based on the urging of that government to provide that service for travellers.

We are maintaining a level of service with the other airports. I asked the department again to look at this issue, and I said, “As long as we do not drop the level of service in our airports.”

I look forward to coming back with the business plans and talking about this again. We are open to suggestions and options. We have to abide by the direction to meet a target we feel would have the least impact on services to the airline companies that use our operations.

We have looked at our other airports. We have taken the opportunities to work with the contracted employees and sought their feedback in terms of how they would improve their working capacity and the capacity of the communities.

For the record, Mr. Chair, that’s all I want to state.