Thank you, Mr. Chair. I’d also like to highlight my main issue with transportation and that’s, of course, the fact that transportation, not the department, but transportation is a phenomena in the Northwest Territories, and in most jurisdictions accounts for 50 to 67 percent of our greenhouse gas emissions. This is the major contributor to climate change. This department, of course, is one of the biggest recipients or experiencers of the impacts of climate change; perhaps poetically so.

I’m always looking for what the real costs are, and somehow they always seem to be buried and obscure and maybe they are difficult to identify. But I think to the extent that we can, we can perhaps make some progress on the issues in a more effective way.

I notice the reference to the winter roads connecting in the Nahendeh and Sahtu regions are going to be improved to withstand the challenges of climate change. I’m pretty sure that’s true in most other regions, so I’m not sure why those were selected over North Slave, for example. I’m wondering if it’s possible to know what those additional costs are, what the trend has been over the last five years or a decade and if there’s any projections into the future so that there are no big surprises there, given that our models are getting more and more accurate on what’s happening.

I note the volume of traffic steadily going up at 7 percent per year. I’m not aware of any efficiencies in fuel standards there and perhaps it’s just because I’m not aware. I don’t hear this department talking about this. Obviously, a responsible government would be one that takes this on head-on, and I think more and more they are across North America. I’d like to see this government establish meaningful fuel and mileage standards for vehicles and, increasingly, jurisdictions are doing this for aircraft. This can start in a straightforward manner, for example, by simply doing the research on what are the most fuel-efficient aircraft that meet the particular needs of a region and making sure that information is known by those who purchase aircraft and so on; of course, as well as vehicles.

I also see the reference the Minister made to the substantial environmental and baseline socio-economic work planned for 2010, 2012, and I’m wondering if he would like to give us any more details on that statement so we have some idea where things are going there. Perhaps that’s something that we could envision a briefing for down the road by EDI for EDI if the Minister was open to that.

Finally, of course, I appreciate this department staying on budget and a 1 percent increase. That’s good to see and it shows that there is control at the helm. Of course, infrastructure dollars are going up which means it must be a challenge to administer that effectively and so on. So far we’re hoping that the Subcommittee on Infrastructure has reversed the trend, but so far the only trend we have in hand is increasing proportions of carry-over from year to year to year over the last four years. I’m wondering if the Minister can provide us with information, given that there’s four weeks left in the fiscal year, on what the carry-over will be this year as, perhaps, an amount and a percentage that shows that we’ve got that trend reversed.

Those are my comments. I’ll continue to ask questions in that area as we go through. Again, I appreciate the Minister’s opening remarks and the chance to participate in this review. Mahsi.