Thank you very much.
Cut me off early, because I'd like to share my time with Anita Neville.
I'm impressed with your enthusiasm. It's very nice to see. I'll have to say I'm shocked that you spent three days in the community--that's quite a commitment. I'm glad to hear you don't spend a lot of time in the department, because you need to be out in the communities. In our conversations outside this room, that's what I encourage everyone to do, to make sure they get in and visit communities.
I have three questions. Maybe I'll lump them all together. You've touched on them. First of all, I'm going to go back to the comment you made about the elders. The strength in any community is the elders. The support I have in the communities is the number of elders I actually get out to see at meetings or who visit me at the airport when I'm leaving. So I understand that totally, and it's absolutely correct. Pikangikum has tremendous resources and tremendous capacity in its elders, and it really needs to use those. Continuity in any community, whether it's Toronto or Pikangikum.... You need continuity.
I believe you've touched slightly on how you're going to move forward if there are changes in administration, how you keep the ball moving forward.
As to my three questions--I'll be quick because my time is short--on electrification, you mentioned two years. That's a long time. I know part of the line was already built. Maybe there's some difficulty with the delays we've had, but two years is too long. So I want to know what date we're actually going to start putting something in the ground. I know you have concerns because there are other professionals you have to deal with.
On the school, I think the minister's going up on April 10. It's the perfect time for him to tell what day we're going to dig the hole for that school.
On the waste water, I'm very happy to hear you have containers because that's one of the things I mentioned to the minister when this issue first broke. He needed to deal with some of the containers being used in that community, because I've seen them personally. I'm very glad to hear that. It's very positive. So I'm thankful for that.
On the points of entry and the $942,000, would you clarify that it's strictly to deal with where they can go to pick up water around the community? I visited all those sites when I was up there.
If you could tell me or the committee how we're going to make a plan to hook up these homes, which is a huge job.... There are roughly 400 homes there. How are you going to hook up those 400 homes? What plan is in place for that? It's a major job.
I think we've discussed ad nauseam the problems that were perceived to be there. Anything can be done if it's just a matter of putting resources to it in that community.
I know that's a lot in a very short time, but I'd like to give the last couple of minutes to Anita Neville. If you could, help me out as much as you can.
As the last thing--because I won't get a chance to speak again--I thank you for your commitment to the community, but we have to stay at it and we have to stay in the community. I want to personally thank you for that.