Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don’t need to go through a list of projects that have been delayed or put over for another year, because of some of the work that wasn’t done or was overlooked, maybe. I do know that there’s very competent and capable people doing these projects and I’m grateful for the amount of infrastructure dollars that are going into the North, especially into our communities in terms of transportation. You can see the priority in terms of the federal government in terms of the dollars that this department is receiving in terms of funding for much needed infrastructure in our communities and the challenges by the people in the North here, by this department, to have these projects completed. I think this department has a fairly good record in terms of being completed on time. I’m not too sure how much is on budget. They state that they have their projects fairly on budget when they do go with the projects here.
So I guess what I’m looking at is in terms of the amount of work that’s being done here and the challenge, I guess, in terms of the money that’s going to be allocated here and the staff here. I know there’s a need for engineers in the department. One of the things I always note is there are engineers needed right across Canada in terms of transportation. So that’s why I asked. Sometimes we don’t have the resources when we want them. We certainly need engineers. Engineers are spread very thinly across the North here. I’m just noting an observation here in terms of this much needed profession here such as engineers in this department here. That’s what I’m asking. Are there other creative ways, rather than to exhaust the existing staff? You know, use contracting out to maybe engineering firms, that we have a good plan to keep these projects on the books, on time and on schedule. Because I know there are some projects that are not quite following what we said we were going to do. That’s my concern.