Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I just want to start by thanking the Minister for bringing this out. Looking at the plans in the four communities, let me start with housing. I know that, no matter how much housing we put into the Northwest Territories, there will still remain a shortage, and I know that all these retrofits that are coming up are definitely helping. I will not say much more on that part.
On the health part, aging in place is important for people, especially in the smaller communities. I see that having more beds in a regional centre, for now, is a good solution to start, but we need to start looking ahead in the future to having more elders age in their homes.
Looking at my region of the Northwest Territories and opening the Northwest Passage, there are no deep sea ports; there are no dock infrastructures in my region to help support whatever may come in the future. We had quite a number of cruise ships pass by our region and stop, and the lack of infrastructure definitely eliminates tourism and infrastructure as well as our sovereignty. I think we need to start to look at that infrastructure. We have been working on highways, and I think we need to become a little bit more diverse and look at the waterways, as well. That is one area where we definitely need to beef up our expertise and start to do more studies and looking at what possibilities lie within having infrastructure along the rivers, lakes, and oceans.
Another thing is airports in my region. I know a lot of airports in the territory are mostly gravel surface. In a sense, that eliminates larger planes with bigger loads where they cannot apply their brakes, especially in my region, where the runways are short. Looking down the road, maybe the possibility of chipsealing or paving one or two of them where they may be tactical to work with the federal government and the Armed Forces in case we need to have a presence, a larger presence, in the Arctic.
Other than that, Mr. Chair, I did not have much to add. I will not take up too much of committee's time, so I just want to say thanks, and I look for to going through the process. Thank you, Mr. Chair.