The reason the bus service is not going to haul passengers anymore is because the Alberta government deregulated their system. It is now allowing what was a monopoly up until now, to cancel some of the trips that are coming to the rural areas that have very low market volumes.

We have certainly an interest to communicate what the plans are from Greyhound. Our information coming from the local operators is they don’t have a very good understanding as to what the Greyhound plans to do, whether they would step aside if an operator came forward from the Northwest Territories and operated up to Valleyview where the Greyhound services are going to be ending for passengers.

I think our role right now is to try to bridge that communication gap, to talk to Greyhound, to talk to the local operators and make sure we have a good understanding. We’ve already had some requests from operators to see if there was any way that we could subsidize. We’re not at that point yet but we have to consider all options. We are very interested in having a service resume. We think it’s also a good opportunity for our operators in the Northwest Territories to expand their routes and have passenger service continue.

As the Member has mentioned, it is a good service. It is targeted to people that are of low income. A lot of them are seniors, students, and others that are wanting to see the people…That’s it.