Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to see that we have the capital budget before us. I do appreciate that this is a significant capital investment for us, a little bit more than what we normally see on a year-to-year basis in capital.

I appreciate that the federal government, this year, is aligning themselves to make significant dollar-matching contributions. A good portion of this year's capital budget, we are going to be able to expand on it significantly because a number of our dollars are going to be matched by federal dollars to the tune of 75 cents for every 25 cents of ours. That is a welcomed partnership and relationship with the federal government that is going to lead to critical pieces of infrastructure that will continue to build strong and, of course, sustainable territory and necessary infrastructure that we need in many aspects.

Something I wanted to allude to was that, while investments in highways and roads are significant, and that is just the nature of those types of projects, we are also making significant headway in a number of other areas. I think it is worth noting that $42 million towards energy projects is a very significant investment.

We continue to make very good investments in upgrading and replacement of health facilities. We have been doing that for a number of years, but we are also continuing on our Deferred Maintenance Program, and that also includes a number of energy upgrades to GNWT-owned assets, to the tune of about another $9 million. Given the size of our jurisdiction and our population, I am rather impressed with the investment that we are making in capital dollars towards energy upgrades and energy initiatives for our size of territory.

That said, though, I do have an underlying concern. Capital dollars are dollars that are often spent outside of the city of Yellowknife, and are expended in a number of the remote and smaller communities and allow for significant increase in employment opportunities in those regions. As we have heard before or just heard earlier from my honourable colleague from Yellowknife Centre is that carry-overs remain a concern. I am hoping that the Department of Finance can find some solutions to the challenges of which I know there is no easy solution, and that there are a number of facets involved as to why projects can be difficult to deliver upon, but that there needs to be some considerable effort put towards reducing our annual carry-overs.

In our last couple of capital budgets, we have seen instances where almost 50 percent of that year's budget has been carried forward, and now with the capital budget that is one of the largest that we have seen in a number of years. This remains a concern. I am hoping that we can hear from the department on some of the aspects that they are hoping to undertake in order to overcome that challenge.

That is it for now. I don't really have any specifics until we get into department-by-department. Thank you, Mr. Chair.