Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At the outset I want to state that I am in support of this motion wholeheartedly. I mentioned in my Member’s statement that I feel that it’s the responsibility of the federal government to fund and look after new roads within the provinces and territories within our country. The GNWT is unable financially to fund a project the size of the Mackenzie Valley Highway on its own and we shouldn’t have to if the federal government their responsibility and they should.

There are a huge number of positive impacts for this particular project. The positive impacts for our communities for me, probably the foremost one, is that we should see a decrease in the cost of living and an increase in our general quality of life is what should occur. With costs of food, housing, gas,

home heating fuel, all those things going down, it can only be of benefit to all of our communities, particularly those who are now off the road network.

There will be an increased accessibility to services for residents of our communities. I think that’s going to be all communities.

And there will be an increase in the economic development projects that are available to these particular communities. Having a highway access is going to make it far easier for them to bring in materials.

There’s a positive impact for government, both the federal government and the territorial government. This particular project is large enough it’s going to create an economic stimulus within the NWT, but also within all of Canada. It’s not a project we can complete on our own. We certainly don’t have the manpower.

It’s going to be a benefit to the federal government in that it’s going to increase our claim to sovereignty over the Arctic, and that’s been mentioned already by Mr. Abernethy. As well, it’s going to increase the security of our country and the security of the northern part of our country. That’s a huge benefit to the federal government.

It’s a positive impact for businesses within the North and outside, as well, through the South. It’s going to be an increase in the access to resources for many businesses. I think it was Mr. Abernethy who mentioned exploration. I’m sorry, it was Mr. McLeod who mentioned exploration for mining and exploration for oil and gas. If we have a road going north it’s going to open up huge tracts of land within the NWT to exploration and to companies who want to start a business here. It’s been well known that many companies don’t come to the NWT to establish a business because of the huge costs that are involved because we don’t have infrastructure. They’ve said that out loud. Their costs are going to go down. It’s likely going to encourage them to come here.

I see a benefit for the Mackenzie Gas Project, should we ever get approval from the federal government to go ahead.

However, there are negative impacts of a project this size, as well, and Mr. Bromley spoke to many of those. It’s a huge project and it will bring a large influx of people into our Territory; people who are here temporarily, but people nonetheless who are going to have an impact on the communities close to the highway as it’s being built. We have to consider really carefully whether or not we want this project because of the negative impacts and what those negative impacts are going to be. We also have to plan to work around them.

Our communities are going to be affected socially by the numbers of peoples that are going to be around. The fact that they’re transient as opposed to being permanent residents often makes it more difficult to deal with them.

There’s going to be an increase in greenhouse gas production because of this particular project. Any construction project is going to add to that. So we need to weigh one against the other. Is the negative impact going to outweigh the positive? In my mind it does, but we still have to look at it.

It’s going to have an impact on the environment. We can’t carve a strip from Wrigley to the Arctic Ocean without looking at the impact it’s going to have on our environment. It’s going through our lands. We need to consider the effect it’s going to have on all of these lands as it goes through. My feeling is we can’t have construction at any cost. We need to weigh one against the other.

This project has long been ignored by the federal government in spite of all the overtures that the GNWT has put forward to the feds to try to get them to come to the table. We’ve made requests for assistance, we’ve made proposals to try to partner, and they are, so far, studiously ignoring us. This project should be a priority for the federal government on so many levels and in so many quarters that it’s hard to mention them all. It needs to be a priority for them now and it’s a project which must be started now; not now, but right now. I think we’ve waited 50 years for this project to be finished. That’s way too long. As I said the other day on another project, let’s get started.