Mr. Chairman, the Member is quite anxious, as are a lot of people in the Sahtu and other areas in the NWT, to see a road constructed. However, we’re not quite at that stage yet. In the event that we come to that juncture, we would require a federal investment to do the actual construction. That’s still their responsibility.

We’ve been really working hard to try to get information compiled. We’ve just completed an economic analysis of the benefits that would come from such a road. We are now embarking on doing the project description report. The communities of Inuvik and Tuktoyaktuk have completed their sections and they’re moving forward. We’d like to do the section from the Dempster all the way to Wrigley. We have had some very good discussions with the Gwich’in and we will probably be making some agreement in the next little while as to the next steps. We all have to work towards having a plan put together for the Sahtu. There are some communities that we still have to have some discussion with and then, of course, there are others that want to move forward. We need to make sure that those discussions happen. We have yet to have discussions with the Deh Cho or the community of Wrigley.

We feel that this is an important step. It’s a big first step that needs to be done. The environmental scoping and the design work of a road and the route that needs to be decided on is all part of the project description report and we’d like to get that done and get all the different parts of the Mackenzie Valley Highway PDR worked on and moved forward in the next, we’re hoping, two years. It may be longer. It may be shorter but… Given the work that has been accomplished by the Tuk/Inuvik committee, they’ve moved fairly fast, so we’re hoping that is going to happen across the route.