Thank you, Mr. Chairman. One of the issues here we are really facing is the fact that this used to be a MACA program and then MACA transfers the community gas money and the gas tax money, and then they say sorry, we don’t do this anymore. That is sort of one of the problems that we are faced with. That is why these motions keep coming up.

I have often said that there is a policy problem here, where the government used to do this but then they decide that now they are not in this business. I don’t think that there has ever been a heart-to-heart deciding on what government should be responsible for and what communities should be responsible for. I often question, is that money that they used to do things like chipsealing, was that transferred over to the communities? I would have to say I don’t think so. I think the windfall of things like the gas tax money that the department will be pointing at and say, well, now it is your business. You have money. I think that was a windfall above and beyond the existing funding pot that would have covered this in the old days. I think there’s a policy problem. I am not suggesting the Executive Council will see this motion every time this page comes up in every budget going forward, but the reality is that it is coming up in the last few budgets.

The fact is no one seems to want to be addressing the policy problem we have here. It is about who is ultimately responsible for chipsealing. Is it the community or is it the government? In some cases, I think it is probably both. It is a shared responsibility.

I think that work needs to be done. I would say, if you heed one message from this motion, at least hear that, that between the Department of Transportation and the Department of MACA, the two departments need to be sitting down with the municipalities and start working this out to figure out who should be ultimately responsible for this. Just because one department is working as a flow-through for things like gas tax money, that was meant for other things.

Mr. Chairman, I will be supporting this motion. I suggest that someone should start having that conversation on the policy of this issue, which is ultimately who is responsible. Thank you.