Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have an issue I’d like to bring up every chance I get when we have the Department of Transportation here. It’s what must be perceived, in my view, as a printing error in the Minister’s opening comments, because he talks about expansion of airport systems in Fort Good Hope and Tulita and Fort McPherson, but I notice that there’s no Yellowknife there. I’ve raised this issue a number of times and I can appreciate that it’s probably a printing error and the Minister would like to correct that officially for the record and I’d certainly like to hear that. I’ve raised that on a number of occasions. Because he talks about 7 percent growth in some of the following subsequent paragraphs in his opening statements.

One of the things that continue to be lost on this infrastructure and that always gets overlooked is the fact that Yellowknife is an airline hub. It’s just the same point as we say that Hay River is the transportation hub when it comes to trucking, and perhaps even shipping through the barging systems. But certainly Yellowknife is undeniably the hub when it comes to airlines. When we consider the over-the-top traffic and when we consider other components of that, it’s one of those realizations that I certainly hope the department is putting some focus on. I would really look forward to hearing what plans the Minister has to expand that airport runway. In time most of us know, and have come to realize, that eventually of course that airport terminal will live its full life and perhaps show up on the other side of the site. But in the short term, the big focus is that runway needs to be expanded. Now is a good time -- as if there wasn’t any better time -- to start that type of consideration when infrastructure money is out there, when Canada is looking for shovel-ready projects. I’m not sure how much shovel-ready study you need to do on expanding the Yellowknife Airport that few hundred feet left to open up an international traffic gateway. It would help our tourism economy and certainly our business economy. I think it would go a long way for our services here.

I typically don’t have a whole ton of complaints about the Department of Transportation. That probably bodes well for its operation. Occasionally I may have something to do with the Minister, but I wouldn’t necessarily go too far on that statement. I would say that the Department of Transportation does produce a good product in general, certainly, and that’s typically my concern. If the Minister has any fruitful ideas on how we’re going to get that extension happening, I look forward to hearing his plan. I can tell you certainly there are people in our business community who would certainly like to see that. I look forward to a good answer on how we’re going to move forward on this issue.