Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to this department, what role does ITI play in our communities? One of the main roles is dealing with our economic development positions in our communities and trying to assist small businesses.

I know there’s a new program out there called SEED, but I think it’s important that…. We have to do more. We talk about tourism and whatnot. But what we’re seeing is that we have to be able to also develop the economies of our small communities. We can have healthy and vibrant people, but without having a social and economic base for these people to be able to generate business, to have people employed and to have cash flow in our communities…. This department has to do more to stimulate our local communities and economies.

One of the challenges that you face, especially in a lot of communities, is just having the capacity to take on some of these opportunities by having the resources and people to assist small businesses to get off the ground. More important than having the capacity in the community to do it…. We have economic development officers in communities, but that’s just one step. I think we also have to look at how we as communities take advantage of those opportunities and realize that we have a high cost to run a business in small communities. We have some unique challenges by way of high energy costs and high overheads in running a business in small communities.

I would just like to ask: exactly what is this government doing to stimulate the economy with big opportunities? We talk about pipelines; we talk about tourism and whatnot. I think there has to be something that deals with community capacity by way of social and economic development.

Can the Minister tell us exactly what types of investments this government is looking at? I know we have different committees established, but I think, more importantly, this government has to do something to ensure that we are able to sustain businesses in our communities and have them functional so that they can maintain and sustain themselves. A lot of companies go out of business in just a matter of a couple of years because of the high cost of operating a business in communities versus the cost of operating a business in a larger center. I would like to know exactly where we are going in regard to that aspect.