Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I am going to speak about the planned closure of the Edmonton Municipal Airport. This definitely will affect my constituents directly. Should this become an eventuality, people from the Nahendeh riding will have to experience a time element important for emergency medevacs. This amount of time can be the difference between life and death.

We, of course, do not see yet any alternate plans to serve the people of the North. The media in Alberta has reported the tentative plans of using the Edmonton International Airport and ambulances, and then there is the report that routing northern medevacs all the way to Calgary. This does not make any sense to us. It might for Albertans, but not to us Northerners. We are stakeholders in this whole debate. We should be part of the process of developing a strategy to accommodate medical needs should they close this airport.

I think it is also important for Northerners to know what our strategy is. What will the Minister of Health and Social Services and our government do to best serve our emergency medical needs? Remaining silent on this issue is not an option. Saying it is a decision of the City of Edmonton is the wrong thing to do.

We must be vocal and we must have a good strategy to take care of our residents in the Northwest Territories. We do have some time; a couple of years at the most, I think. Before this happens we should use that time wisely and use every resource we have to develop the best strategy for our North and Northerners.