Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to ask the Minister… In his opening comments, he talked about the activity. This is an O and M operational budget. I want to take the opportunity for the Minister if there is somewhere later on in the detail that would speak to looking at having some Transportation permanent positions in the Sahtu, somewhere down the line that the Minister can come back to this House or through some briefings. They are Transportation for highways. It does come out of Fort Simpson’s operation and our airport’s Transportation comes out of Inuvik. I think we have arrived at a place where we should be able to, could be able to, and can’t have the ability to have our own operations in the Sahtu and manage our own affairs, so to speak. I look forward to some type of discussion or initiative on the operation plans. When do you think it could be done in stages? It can be done over time. We need to see some movement. I look forward to that.

The other one is I want to ask – I wonder if the Minister could help me here – how did we arrive at 75/25 split with the territorial government? Is there a policy that we have or is there a policy within the federal government that says definitely we would pay the 75 percent on projects like the Inuvik-Tuk highway, the territorial government would pay 25 percent? Can the Minister show me a policy or is there just a letter or indication from the federal government saying this is what we stick to, because if I am reading in the papers and if the numbers are going up on the northern portion of the Mackenzie Valley Highway, then it brings me some concern. Of course we want to support, but when the numbers are starting to fall apart and there are new numbers coming up just like the Deh Cho Bridge, we have some concerns here. We need to ask those hard questions to the Minister to satisfy our need for if things are changing, if things are not going to stay the same all the time, because those numbers affect our own needs for our own infrastructure in our own communities.

I think the federal government also needs to know that we are moving ahead on these projects. I am looking forward to when the Minister opens the Deh Cho Bridge. It is a good thing. It went through a lot of turmoil like a washing machine because of all the stuff. That is part of learning. That is part of growth. We are doing the same thing with the Inuvik-Tuk highway. We do probably other major projects like that too. Not to shy away from it, that says a lot. We are a young territory. It makes things a little difficult to construct sometimes in the Northwest Territories. So I would ask the Minister about the 25/75 split and if Ottawa is solid on that. Do we know that the federal government is solid saying yes, they are going to cut a deal with 75 and you guys take care of the 25, that’s it? So when the project begins, the Tuk-Inuvik road that we’re not 26 percent and

they’re not 74 percent. We stay at 25 and they stay at 75. Can we hold their feet to the fire on that ratio? How strong are we? So that’s what I wanted to ask the Minister and it’s a fair question, I think. At the end of the day, if the numbers are not there for us, will the Deh Cho Bridge go over the $200 million mark? Right now we’re just about there. If I’m going to go into that saga, I want to see that construction piece finished.

So for me, Mr. Chair, those are my general comments until we go to detail.