Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was kind of worried there that I might not have time, but.
Mr. Speaker, from the start of this 19th Assembly, I have talked about dredging. People want to call it harbour remediation, they want to call it harbour restoration, whatever. But really it is removing the silt from the bottom of the channel in the harbour so that boats can come in and out. It's not just me that has talked about it. You know, the Member for Hay River North, when he was sitting on this side, he did the same thing. And, you know, Mr. Bouchard, when he was here, he did the same thing. But we haven't seen any of the infrastructure Ministers do anything in the last how many years with this. We haven't seen any dredging. People in Hay River have been asking for it. And I'm hoping that this Minister, you know, will be different. You know, we're giving her a chance to do something, like I said before, that the other ones haven't been able to do. So we are getting -- like, we are all aware that, you know, we are getting close to the shipping season here. We're getting close to, you know, the commercial fisheries. The other day I was at a meeting and the fishermen were concerned. You know, there's less than four feet of water in the channel so when the fishing boats and MTS barges are loaded, they need a little bit more than that. So I guess what I'd like to know, I guess, is, you know, after years of no dredging, can the Minister confirm if this summer will be different? Are we going to be dragging boats through the channel? Are we going to be having -- you know, making a few dollars for MTS by pulling coast guard boats off? I don't know. But I think that, you know, we don't want to be spending more money not getting freight up to the communities because they can't get through the channel at Hay River. So, again, will the Minister confirm if there will be anything going on this summer, and we need it done now. We don't need it done later in the summer. We need some type of action sooner than later. Thank you.
