Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today my Member’s statement is about the federal transit funding for the City of Yellowknife; the transit money, Mr. Speaker. In addition to the funding available under the New Deal for cities and communities, the federal government is making over a million dollars available for existing NWT public transit systems. I’ve been given to understand that this money is available and is just being held up by MACA’s inability to come up with a definition of what they can’t decide is existing transit, Mr. Speaker. This money’s been available since its initial announcement of June 1st of last year under Bill C-48 and it was finally profiled under Parliament’s Bill C-66 in November. So, Mr. Speaker, it’s been out for over six or seven months.

If the MACA Minister can’t decide what he wants to do, well, let me inform him that Yellowknife has the only operating public transit system. I’m sorry to say, but there are no other communities in the Northwest Territories that have one. Mr. Speaker, I’m not going to quibble with the Minister on whether community buses or community groups, NGOs or other agencies that transport either the handicapped, the elderly or whatever, constitute as a public transit system, but the fact is, sadly, I have to admit, the federal program does not recognize them as existing public transit systems. So the point here is, Mr. Speaker, we have one transit system here in the Northwest Territories. Why does the Minister want to again quibble, or I should say dither, over the definition of what transit is?

Mr. Speaker, the City of Yellowknife needs this cash infusion sooner rather than later. It will improve our transit ridership in Yellowknife, it will get more people off the streets, and you know what? It may even spill into solving problems created and acknowledged by the Kyoto problem. Mr. Speaker, we need the MACA Minister to show some political leadership because if he continues to want to dither over this money by trying to re-profile it, well, let’s at least take the initiative of giving the City of Yellowknife 80 percent of their money and then we can continue to discuss this a little further. Let us drill down to the facts, Mr. Speaker. This doesn’t mean the transit ridership should not be ignored anywhere else in the Northwest Territories, but the fact is Yellowknife money is being held up by the MACA Minister.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, Yellowknife MLAs such as myself would never stand in the way of community money, such as the $500 million for the federal pipeline money that will go to affected pipeline communities. The fact is, I look for the same support from the MACA Minister when Yellowknife’s money is being held back by a MACA Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That’s all I have at this time.

---Applause