Thank you.
Mr. Hames, I want to thank you for your suggestion about freezing the ag budget and using the money for R and D to get some of that return back into the system in a fashion that takes some pressure off, to be truthful about it. I'm not sure whether government members will agree, but if you reduce the liability to the federal government by doing so, that's a very innovative way of looking at it, and I appreciate it.
I'm not really looking for a response. I just want to say I agree with you; I think it's a good idea.
Mr. Marit, we've taken a position that the capital vote is rather locked up right now. We hear there is $500 billion that businesses are holding on to, and understandably so, because they're afraid of a downturn and of the banks freezing up again. We've suggested that now is the time for the federal government to take leadership on infrastructure and social infrastructure.
Something that struck me during your presentation, and that struck me particularly in the Yukon, where there are infrastructure problems—their hydro lines are 50 years old, and whatnot—is that we don't have the population in our rural areas to sustain and pay the costs of the very infrastructure that's needed to get produce through your areas into market, or a variety of flow-through types of activities that would go through the area. In a sense, there's more of an impetus on the federal government to do the investing in infrastructure in rural areas than in the more urban areas.
What are your thoughts?