Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to start by commending the Premier and Cabinet on the speed of following through on our priorities for the 17th Assembly. This project has

been highlighted as one of our main priorities for this government. There is a time frame that we have for working up in the Mackenzie Delta/ Beaufort-Delta and that is between January and mid-April. If we are talking about holding this project until next year, by the time we get this stage of work done, it will be wasting two years of our term. I don’t think that we could put these sorts of major projects on hold just over $250 million. The day before yesterday we spent $2.3 million to a good cause similar to this.

In the Mackenzie Delta right now there is very limited work. We have six major construction companies that are sitting idle right now. There is just keeping ice roads open, maintaining highways. Our people need work. Right now we have people going to the Sahtu. They have $60 million worth of work over the next three years.

Another priority for this government is our economic expense for the territory. Now it just troubles me that to put all of these major priorities on hold over $2.5 million. It is kind of disturbing me right now. Any major project, you have to do your due

diligence. That is one thing our government is trying to do here. I am in full support of this.

As I mentioned, we have a short time frame. We have about two months to get this work completed. By the fall we will have all of our information that we need for this work to proceed. Hopefully we can move this forward and support our people in the territory. They need a strong economic territory. That is one thing I believe this government, if we all pull together, we could achieve that for people of the Northwest Territories. Mahsi.