Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just have a few comments that I would like to make to the budget. For the last two years the Minister has been saying that we are preserving our budget, keeping good track of our budget for the last two years of our term. Just looking at the budget, it is almost similar as last year. I was expecting maybe a $300 million budget this year just spread out amongst the communities.

I do appreciate the budget right now. There is $2 million set aside for the riding I represent, but there are a number of concerns in my riding, actually, with the project that is the Inuvik-Tuk highway.

Just one thing people would like to see is more training in the communities. That hasn’t happened. I am very surprised. It seems like every time we see a major project, whether it is oil and gas in the Sahtu, training takes a long time to be implemented. As soon as we hear of a project that’s going to happen, we need to start implementing right away these training mechanisms. I hope that starts right now because the employment rates are still the same in the communities, 30 to 35 percent. We need to improve that.

I was just thinking when my last colleague was speaking, just think of the boost we would give the communities if we were to give them $1 million for their own projects, the amount of employment that we could create in the smaller communities. That is thinking outside the box. I think that is what we

need to do here. We have two years left in our term and I would like to see something like that happen.

With that said, I do appreciate the amount of money that is being spent in my riding. It could always be more, but I would like to thank everyone that worked together to get this budget in place. Thank you.