Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was pleased with the budget, especially in the area of infrastructure spending. We have in and around the small communities that is a key area for government spending. In my communities -- there are five -- from the operation of some of the infrastructure there is not a lot of O and M spending by the GNWT. The $246 million infrastructure, $50 million in housing targeted some of it, targeted it towards repairs and so on. I see it is very positive. I think government has to develop a good plan for how to spend that money. I know that when I had an opportunity to question the Minister responsible for the majority of the infrastructure or the three major infrastructure departments of Public Works, DOT and Housing, that there are some changes being introduced in the way they plan the infrastructure, project management planning. I see that as a positive thing. I am looking forward to the Housing Corporation developing some sort of strategy for the disposition of their public housing units. My thought is that using this money to fix up the public housing units and then able to pass on the public housing to the clients that have lived in these housing units for a long time in fairly decent shape that very reasonable price that would allow a lot of people to come off of the social housing system and become homeowners.

I like the idea of mentioning small business in the budget. I think that that is very important in the area where I think that small communities will benefit from development of some small businesses in the smaller communities. I think that government has some work to do in facilitating that. However, I think that it is the right idea to place some emphasis on small business development.

In the area of the environmental stewardship, I thought that this is something to put some attention to the Wildlife Act and the Species at Risk Act. I think those are important acts so that we can begin to manage our wildlife with our own home-grown acts and rules that will allow us to make the best decisions for the wildlife; caribou and bison being a couple of areas that we’d benefit from having our own act and our own Species at Risk Act and so on.

The money that was announced by the federal government on Mackenzie Gas Project in the area of regulatory process, streamlining regulatory process, I am assuming that the ultimate objective in doing environmental assessments and so on, I think that is an area I would like to see our environment department get more heavily involved. All of that money is going to be spent directly by the federal government or not. I think there are always opportunities for the GNWT and the federal government to work together. I found that being with the Department of Environment, I found many opportunities where the GNWT and the federal government are working together on all of the environmental agreements and so on at the diamond mines. I am hoping that something like this will evolve from here where there is an opportunity for people in small communities to be involved in the environmental stewardship. I know that is a big issue for a small community. I am looking forward to something evolving from that budget, although it is the federal government’s budget, like I indicated.

I like the hydro development. Of course, he mentioned specifically of mini-hydro in Lutselk’e and the opportunities where that could be afforded to the community of Lutselk’e as a result of hydro development is something that I am looking forward to. I think that the communities did some work and looked at the various ways that hydro development close to a community could benefit the community, and work in the area of lowering the cost of power to the community and ultimately lowering their cost of living for that community.

I am looking forward to having some of the youth spending out there in the communities and so on. I think that there has been more done in the area of youth spending in this budget than has been than in the past. Being this is looked at as the first year where we are trying to put some new money to help the youth and so on. I look forward to future years and also the fact that we will eventually, I am hoping, put this youth plan, youth strategies and so on in place.

Just a brief mention of devolution on the federal government to manage our own lands, water and resources. I think that is a positive move. I think it is a very good move for the economy of the Northwest

Territories. If this government can negotiate the transfer of positions from the other managing our land, our water and resources, Ottawa’s positions were to be held in Yellowknife, I think that it is a good opportunity for displacement positions from Yellowknife to the regional centres and also from the regional centres on to the communities. Managing lands, water and resources is probably no better way to do it than to be near the lands, water and resources that you are trying to manage. I am looking forward to something coming out of the talks, at any future talks or talks that have already occurred between our leaders and also people in Ottawa for this initiative.

I have some general concerns. I’d like to see more focus on small communities. I still have the idea that we can centralize some of the positions out of the GNWT and delegate some of the authority to the community governments and manage some of our programs in that way. Again, the centralization, a very few of the small communities could have such a major impact. We still, I don’t think, have resolved the issue of the public housing income support issue and so on. I think that more emphasis on the cost of living, reduction of the cost of living in small communities and programs that could be put in place to reduce the cost of power. We often hear about the cost of power, cost of food. There are positive things with some of the cost of fuel and gasoline recently. It’s still high, but I’m expecting that to come down over the next couple of years also.

I think that housing for staff is key in order for us to carry a lot of these initiatives out. I notice there is some money there, but again facilitation of how housing for staff can be put on the ground in small communities is probably going to be a challenge.

It was good to see some of the energy programs that the government chose to keep supporting in the area of addictions and health counsellors and so on. I’m out of time.