Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wanted to bring my Member’s Statement to the point of bridges since we’re talking about the bridge that’s going to benefit the people of the Northwest Territories; specifically the city of Yellowknife and also to the community of Fort Providence in terms of having a bridge being constructed across the mighty Deh Cho.

I want to ask and talk about my statement in terms of the Great Bear River bridge in the Sahtu River that has been somewhat postponed. I’m afraid to say cancellation because of the increased costs of this bridge. However, the people in our region have been waiting for a long time in terms of seeing what they can do to work with industry to increase the benefits into our region and to extend the winter operations such as oil and gas and mining exploration; also for the people in the Sahtu to use the winter roads. There’s a very small window of opportunity for them to drive out with their families, do some shopping in Yellowknife, Hay River, even Fort Simpson, in terms of reducing their cost of living in terms of the grocery bills. But also to look at where they can look at opportunities for the communities to train and have businesspeople look at the types of benefits that could build capacity within their own community.

I’m here in somewhat, I guess, a frustrated mode in terms of the Deh Cho Bridge can get full support of this government, even on a risky basis, to go ahead with this and I certainly see the benefits of this and I would like to have the same type of opportunity to be given to the people of the Sahtu in terms of putting our bridge forward. It seems that we’re getting stopped in terms of how do we put a bridge at the Bear River and not expand on some of the oil and gas companies that could be used in our region to boost our economies a little further there. So, Mr. Speaker, I wanted to remind the government that life is beyond the region here, and our region, so far, has been shut out and shut down and no wonder we hear comments of being the isolated region. Thank you.

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