Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The tours that I’ve been having in the Sahtu region – and I know this came up in the 16th also – this issue

here is with the district office in the Sahtu. One of the questions that came up in our communities was the value of having the district office in the Sahtu situated in Norman Wells.

I know the communities talked about moving some of the techies to the communities because the issue came that when the technician, it might improve. Some of the technical staff members come into the communities and they only stay the limited period of time and seem to watch the clock saying the plane is coming and they can’t stay very long. They come once in awhile. The advantage of having them stay there all the time would completely help them understand the programs, understand the applications, and having these positions moved to the communities under a universal partnership agreement. This is one level of bureaucracy that we have in the Sahtu and some of them see that these positions could be moved right into the communities and funded by people in the communities.

I know this request came some time ago and it didn’t get good traction with Housing as to not having these positions moved to the communities. I just want to raise that with the Minister.

I’m not making a request because I certainly haven’t done enough research, but I certainly know that this has been a long-standing issue in the Sahtu communities. I just want to make sure that this issue is still alive with the government, even if they don’t agree with it, that this is what the people want. Until we start making some improvements to having the technicians stay longer in the

communities. They may have improved. I’m not too sure. I certainly get complaints from Colville Lake and some other communities.