Thank you, Mr. Chair. There was a time a few Assemblies ago when the capital budget used to be debated almost at the same time as the operations budget. There was a decision made at the time to move that to October, and the reason for that was so that the departments could get their contracts out and possibly awarded before April 1^st; that way, they can have everything they needed in the community. We have seen a couple of good examples. I will use an example in one community where the contract was awarded; it took them all summer to get their material in. I think that construction started on November 1^st or 2^nd, and automatically there was a cold weather clause in the contract that kicked in, which added a few dollars onto the contract. The decision was made at the time to do the capital budget in October with the intent of having all of the contracts and all of the supplies, everything, awarded, taking advantage of the ice roads if there was an opportunity to do so, and get the material into the communities.

I think, for the most part, it has worked. There is still a bit of a challenge in trying to get some of these contracts out. Again, we need to keep reiterating with the departments that you need to get the contracts out, or there will be consequences. I think that is a message that needs to keep being preached going forward, and eventually it will just become a part of everyday business to make sure that we have all of these contracts award.

To the Member's point about climate change, I think that we have seen that in some of the delivery in the last boating season. Actually, I was just out the other day; it was June the 1^st, and already the water on the Mackenzie was the lowest that I have ever seen it in the springtime. That indicates to me that we might be facing a bit of a challenge in our supply. There are a number of different factors that come in, but I think that one of the reasons that we changed the date to debate the capital budget was to get these projects out the door and take advantage of the winter. Thank you, Mr. Chair.