Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I note that this is the biggest ever, apparently, Infrastructure budget, the bulk of which is going towards roads and the bulk of which is being driven by the federal government's shared-cost projects that are going on at the moment.

I recognize that these projects are an important generator of labour income in communities throughout the NWT, but it is not clear at all how much of that labour is NWT labour, especially given the scope and size of these projects. I wonder, as well, given that, whether it would make more sense to spread the money out. It seems as if this is a similar situation that we got into with the mines, where they were all developed at once, and so the NWT labour pool wasn't large enough to supply labour to all three. I wonder if the same thing will happen with these large infrastructure projects. We do know that there have been considerable carry-overs year-to-year because of the amount of spending to be done and the relative lack of contractors.

What I see, as well, in this budget, is that much-needed investment in new schools is being pushed off into the 19^th Assembly. There are key school projects that need to be completed, where schools are inadequate for the size of the student population, or they are inadequate because they have become in need of a major retrofit. What I see is that that investment has mostly been pushed off to the 19^th Assembly.

I also note that there are no new investments in building new housing, although we know that more housing is needed, especially for seniors. There are huge waiting lists for rent-geared-to-income housing, affordable housing, here in Yellowknife, and we know that Mary Murphy seniors' home is aging and will need to be replaced. We also know that the Rockhill Apartments have burned down, and there is hope for a replacement of that building, and also, of course, a replacement for the Hay River Family Support Centre. It is important to note that that is not the only Family Support Centre that is in dire need of replacement. Of course, that particular building has been torn down, but it is my understanding that the family violence shelter in Tuktoyaktuk is not in very good shape either.

There are, of course, more projects in the queue, and roads seem to be taking a disproportionate amount of space here.

The other thing I wanted to mention of projects in the queue is an investment in tourism is required above and beyond what is mentioned in these capital estimates, specifically in a visitor information centre for Yellowknife, another in Tuktoyaktuk, and for park expansions in both places, where the parks in the Yellowknife area have become very full, and in Tuktoyaktuk, there are very limited tourism facilities, and more are needed now that that road is open.

I realize this is a capital budget, but I really do think that we need more money for the operating budgets, and we don't have to look any further than today's debate about resourcing the Child and Family Services area of Health and Social Services. Clearly, it is under-resourced. It has been under-resourced for many years, and there is more money required in that operating budget.

There are other budgets that we have discussed, operations and maintenance, departmental budgets, where we have identified a need for more spending to keep up with the demand for services, let alone introduce new ones.

With that said, I am looking forward to debating the details of the capital budget when we get into the particular departments. Thank you.