It’s important to realize that by doing that, it’s not simply a way of centralizing everything in one place, but ensuring that those dollars that should be expended in the area of education, the area of health care is actually being spent on education and actually being spent on health care and not being expended on administration.

I’m glad to see that the Department of ECE and the Housing Corporation saw the light in regards to dealing with public housing and income support. I think, if anything, there is also an area that Housing has to take a closer look at and consider exactly how do they calculate rents by way of using a formula used now, which I believe is unfair in regards to using gross income versus net.

I think, also, the other issue has to be dealt with around the area of affordability for housing. I think in most cases that we have to realize that we do have aging infrastructure. We do have people that

are having some challenges with housing. We continue to put rents up and kick them out of housing but we still continue to pay to put them somewhere else. It is something that we have to grapple with. I think we have to look at housing in light of people that are homeless, people that are hard to house and the aging population of the people in the Northwest Territories. I think we do have to get back in some means, because the Department of Health and Social Services and Housing are finding a way to put more seniors housing or seniors facilities in the communities where basically the numbers allow it to be delivered by way of keeping the elders in the home communities, keeping them close to their families, but more importantly allow them to live out their days in comfort.

Again, like I stated, the overall budget is something that I think goes a long way to dealing with the infrastructure challenges that we face, but, again, we do have to find ways of ensuring the public that we are not spending public funds for basically government or non-government agencies regardless if it is the mining companies or the oil and gas companies or where we don’t receive any royalties or any real benefit by way of resource benefits in which all that flows to Ottawa. I think, at the end of the day, the federal government has to pay for those infrastructures regardless if it is a road to a mine, hydro development to a mine, and through those power purchase agreements that they should be able to stand on their own without any public funds being expended on it. Until there is some heritage fund of some sort established, and I think on the heritage fund idea, I think it is a great idea. I think what we should do is be requiring that the federal government take some of the Norman Wells resources that it presently receives today and put it into the heritage fund immediately. The federal government owns one-third of the Norman Wells field. They own it. It is a Crown corporation or the federal government has one-third ownership of the Norman Wells oilfield. If anything, that is what we should be asking for, is that we take a portion of one-third ownership, take those revenues that they receive, which I believe is somewhere in the range of $200 million a year, and put it into a heritage fund regardless if that fund is going to be used to build the Mackenzie Highway or used to ensure that we have dollars there to develop the infrastructure that is going to be needed to extract other resources regardless if it is oil and gas or minerals or even for tourism.

Again, on the Deh Cho Bridge, I think that it is long overdue. It is on its way. I do support the concept of the Deh Cho Bridge of how we can develop infrastructure in the Northwest Territories. I think the government has to think outside the box and realize the Deh Cho Bridge is the first of many bridges we need in the Northwest Territories and

start focusing on those other crossings regardless if it is the Liard, the Peel, the Mackenzie up around Tsiigehtchic or in regards to the Mackenzie Valley. The Mackenzie Valley, we have invested some $30 million on bridges. I think, by doing that, we now have a better case for the Mackenzie Highway to finding ways of actually connecting those bridges and building the Mackenzie Highway up the valley and, more importantly, working with the private sector, working with the aboriginal organizations to get there.

Before I close, I don’t want to lose sight of the issue that is still on top of my agenda, is the access road from Aklavik to the gravel source. Again, there is nothing even mentioned in this agreement or this package. It was mentioned previously. Again, this government has an obligation to ensure communities have access to the gravel sources and not to find a way that, sorry, now it is the federal government’s responsibility. It is the Government of the Northwest Territories to find a way to strike gravel from public infrastructure in communities such as the gravel source in Aklavik which, again, I see very little by way of this import of this government. I don’t know why, but for some reason they are totally reluctant to step up to the plate.

There was a motion passed in this Legislative Assembly supporting two projects. One was Tuktoyaktuk to the gravel source. The other was to Aklavik gravel source. Again, this government, for some reason or another, and I don’t know if it is a feel good capital item or not, but again I will be stressing that I was hoping that we could see something added in this budget. Again, there is nothing there mentioning that. I think also realizing that the community of Aklavik is very frustrated with the way they have been treated on this matter and not being fair to that community. With that, Mr. Chair, I will leave it at that. Thank you.