Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the economic times we’re in, I think it’s more important than ever for this government to do whatever it can to stimulate our local economies in regard to capital planning and also allow for communities to have the ability to deal with high unemployment, especially when people are being laid off in the different sectors, such as mining and oil and gas. As a government, we do have to stimulate our communities and local economies.

Reviewing the capital planning from this government, the majority of the expenditures between now and 2012 will be spent primarily in the larger centres such as Yellowknife, Hay River, and Inuvik. We do have to work with our local communities to stimulate their economies in light of the capital expenditures mentioned by the government of some $700 million over the next number of years. The majority of that is being spent in three communities.

I think it’s important to realize that we have 33 communities in the Northwest Territories and we do have to find ways to stimulate those economies. The majority of the communities have work by way of seasonal employment. In most cases the work that is in our communities is based on the housing initiative that was put out where we got 500-some units on the ground. That was a good start. We now have $50 million for housing that I think we have to find a way to make the number one priority to implement those funds while realizing that we need to stimulate our economy in our smaller communities where there are already high unemployment rates and no other options like in larger regional centres. We have to do whatever we can to find ways to generate those programs.

I, for one, fully supported the previous government’s initiative to build community capacity by allowing communities to identify projects that they’d like to deliver through a formula which was base-plus funding so that communities were able to take on projects that they felt they didn’t have an opportunity to put forward such as the Main Street Chipseal Program, which was there to assist communities. This program was eliminated.

I will be asking the Premier questions on this matter later, on how we’re building capacity in our small communities.