Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chairman, I think during this review I need to touch on a few of the projects. I think they are in the books. I think they are moving forward, and I think we have some of them on record. My objective, I think, is to give comfort to individuals in the communities that have been asking for the various items that do not appear in this year's capital plan, but there is some planning going on that advance some of these projects.

I am looking, for sure, for one of the big items that is not in the capital plan except possibly a study which does not really secure the capital plan, I have discovered, but the Kaw Tay Whee School in. It is something that I think, when the department comes up, I would like to explore. I think the Minister has made a commitment to do the planning study, but I am going to just drill down a little bit more on a project such as that.

A very similar situation with the health centre in Lutselk'e. I know that, again, the community themselves had asked for the project, the school could be advanced ahead of the health centre, and all of that was occurring over the last few years. Now again I want to give comfort to the community that, once this big project of rebuilding the schools is done, the workers and all the training they have done in there will have another project, at least another project to work on.

I think there is a lot of work being done by the department working with the Detah education authority to look at providing a gym for their school, a proper gym for their school, and that is something, again, I would like to discuss more when the department comes up, and also an adult learning centre.

I think that we need to look at the more contribution type of funding in capital. The capital infrastructure does not have any money for contribution. I always felt that the Community Access Road Program was something that was very valuable to the community in many, many ways. I know that 10 years ago, when I started as MLA, I was campaigning when people were telling me that one of the things that I should really be talking to the government about should I be elected was an all-season road to a place called Austin Lake out of Lutselk'e. I have talked about it quite a few times, and I think there is money flowing in there now. Now, we need to figure out the time frame in which we would like to bring this project in. It is also on the way by Snowdrift River, which is I think a river that has great potential for hydro, mini hydro. That is, I think, something we need to hash out and give assurances to people that these things are still something that we are working on a government.

I think, when we do spend our capital money, we need to do that so that the majority of the benefits start to flow to local and northern businesses. Recently, there have been businesses right here in Yellowknife that indicated they are taking losses in projects that have been delivered by the government, our government, and it appears as though we have gone so far into the deal that there is nothing we could do to, no leverage, I should say, because of legal matters or whatever matters that stand in the way of trying to resolve issues for local businesses who are big employers of individuals in the community. Of course, by community, I am talking about Yellowknife in this instance.

It has not just occurred once. This occurs frequently, where our businesses establish long-term businesses established in the NWT, go into work for companies that are working on behalf of the GNWT building infrastructure. They end up, at the end of the day, some of the businesses take losses, and when they turn to the only place they know, the only reason they got into business is because it appeared to be a government project, we then turn around and tell them that we are not in a position legally, contractually, or whatever the reasons, not in the business to help them.

I think that, as we launch into this next round of capital starting sometime in the next fiscal year, we put some safeguards in there for our people. I think it is important if we can build a huge piece of infrastructure that benefits whichever community that we are building it in, but on the way there, we knock off a couple of our own companies that are here in the North. That leaves a sour taste in people's mouths on getting into GNWT funding projects. I think that should be something we should try to safeguard against.

Finally I want to talk a bit about the highway going into Fort Resolution. I was driving into Fort Resolution on the way in there. I ran into an individual in Fort Providence, and he said to me, "Have you driven that highway since they started sealing the latter sections of it?" I said "I hadn't. That was my first time in there in a couple of months." He called it a "super highway." It is interesting because, when you drive that highway, it is like a super highway. That really good work. I believe that was a negotiated contract with a company that was employing the majority of the people out of Fort Resolution as operators and drivers and everything. That is probably the best highway I have driven on within the NWT.

I think that we have to continue to look at negotiated contracts and find a way that we can do that. This kept the money in the NWT, it kept the money in the community, and it produced a beautiful product. I do not think that this government can just say no all the time to negotiated contracts, and that we are not in a position to negotiate contracts. There are a lot of benefits to negotiated contracts. The people know it, and the community knows that there is a lot of benefit to it.

I think that is something, again, that we need to start looking at. I think the Minister, when he answered a couple of questions from me, said that this negotiated contract may have been something that had been dealt with before this government. I do not know. I think it was during this government, but there is a really good procurement method. For me, I thought that that was the way to go. There are a lot of benefits to it and a really, really good product. I thought that was something that the government should consider moving forward when we are rebuilding highways. Thank you, Mr. Chair.