Thank you, Madam Chair. Within the plans for 2013 year I was very shocked to see the lack of spending within the Mackenzie Delta riding. Over the last year we’ve noticed a lot of residents moving back to our communities of the Mackenzie Delta. Whether it’s lack of work either in Inuvik or a lot of students coming back from school in the south, we’ve seen a huge increase of students coming back to the communities. With that, we’ve seen a big demand for housing within the regions. I was hoping that we could plan for this coming year to put more infrastructure into the communities.
Also, to do with Public Works, Moose Kerr School in Aklavik was built in 1968. The school there is 44 years old and I do not see any plans within the next couple of years here to have a new one built. The school is really in need of replacement, yet there’s no room on the red flag list.
Also, as a colleague mentioned, the Inuvik-Tuk highway; as many people know, there’s very little work in Inuvik at this time and the residents of Inuvik could really use some work this winter. I’m hoping that this government could put in place a good portion of the highway to be started within this year, if possible.
Also on our highway, as one of my colleagues mentioned earlier, the condition of our highway. There is a lot of work that has been done on the Dempster Highway, Highway No. 8, over the last number of years, and I commend the government for doing the widening project, but the maintenance part of things has kind of fallen apart. There’s actually less maintenance that is being done to our highway system even though our highway has increased. I know a lot of our residents would like to see that section of the highway chipsealed in the near future, which would attract a lot of tourists. We’re seeing a lot of tourists that aren’t coming to our region mainly because of the situation of the Dempster Highway. I’m hoping that we could address that issue over the coming years. Thank you.