Thank you, Mr. Speaker. One of the concerns about the -- the folk festival aside -- one of the concerns, a business case concern was that at 36 sites and the lack of opportunity for expansion, this would really not be an adequate one for us. What are the projections and what would an ideal size be for a RV park here in Yellowknife, Mr. Speaker?

...for her second album Sedze. It was only the latest in a string of awards for this talented young woman, Mr. Speaker. She had previously been recognized by the Canadian Aboriginal Music Awards as the best female artist and songwriter for her first CD Spirit World, Solid Wood. That CD is also recognized as the best folk album.

Leela Gilday is a First Nations singer born and raised in Yellowknife. Of course, the achievements of her father, Bill, are known far and wide. He has a long history in Yellowknife and the NWT. He’s the founder and the mainstay of the Gumboots, which have several CDs...

Okay. So we are blending a health issue, housing issue, a staffing issue all in a bundle here. I am beginning to understand now, comprehend the intention here and I don’t find any argument with it, but the manner in which it’s presented is very obtuse, Mr. Chair. I guess it makes me a bit frustrated in having to deal with these sums because $800,000 is no trifling matter.

I also wanted to ask, Mr. Chair, it’s called contribution funding to the NWT Housing Corporation. Is this new contribution funding that we are turning over to the Housing Corporation or is it a transfer from ECE of money...

Okay. What is the difficulty or what are the issues that ECE is encountering that it cannot administer this along with so many of the other contribution programs that are made through housing? Madam Chair, it’s quite a confusing piece of work here. I am just trying to make sure I am not missing anything here.

Madam Chair, one of the items under the directorate, $798,000 is to provide contribution funding associated with the transfer of public housing rental subsidy funding for seniors’ assisted living and seniors’ caretaker housing units from ECE to the NWT Housing Corporation. Madam Chair, we just went through quite a turnaround here over the last couple of years of moving operation money from the Housing Corporation to ECE; now we are moving some back. I would appreciate an explanation, for the record, of what this $800,000 contribution funding is going to do that otherwise can’t be done or can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I certainly hope we can all count on the optimism that the Minister is projecting about a Monday service date. Mr. Speaker, in some other discussions with folks on this issue, I was told that the Mackenzie River was indeed clear of ice yesterday and could have accepted the…The boat could have been in service very plainly, but we ran into apparently some issues regarding maintenance or inspection of the boat. Could the Minister advise why the Merv Hardie ferry was not in the water yesterday?

Mr. Speaker, you know, again, I want to appeal to the Minister and ask for his commitment to focus not on what’s good for the pipeline project, Exxon Mobil and the other investors; what is good for the Northwest Territories? Will this government finally and aggressively focus on what we need, not what works to the advantage of the pipeline proponents, Mr. Speaker?

Mr. Speaker, considering the significance of this project to the Northwest Territories, is the Minister, is the government going to be more specific and be more aggressive about the kind of support we would like to see the federal government taking? Of course, there are lots of different options, all of them that make sense in certain areas, but which are the ones that make most sense for us for the long-term future of the Northwest Territories? Is the government going to be taking that case to the federal government and promote our interests in this project, Mr. Speaker?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize a constituent, Mr. Jim Peterson, a former president of the NWT Tourism Association and a sports hunting and fishing outfitter, Mr. Speaker.

---Applause

Madam Chair, another aspect of the volume of projects being carried over is that the expectation was that these would be completed within a given fiscal year and a time frame. We have already, of course, passed the budget for 2007-2008 and the hundred more projects, new initiatives that we want to get done this year. But yet we find ourselves dealing with many, many projects unfinished from the previous year. So a concern here, Madam Chair, is that our capacity to handle our own new work, let alone the stuff that’s unfinished from previous years, is going to even more compound our capacity...