Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you all for being here today, I do appreciate it.
Just to reinforce Mr. Watson's intervention a little bit, it is very true that the chiefs, when they were here on April 29, did say that what's of paramount importance is what goes via what route, rather than knowing what is going on each shipment. I think the key issue is that using that real-time expression is somewhat misleading about what you're really trying to accomplish. Maybe some rephrasing might be helpful so that we don't have this confusion about what we're really asking for. Obviously what you're essentially saying by “real-time”, Mr. Demers, is not needing to know exactly at what point.... You've been very clear on that, but real-time does kind of imply that. Maybe we have to come up with new terminology so there's no confusion on that. But it's good to have that point clarified.
Mr. Marit, I'm from Manitoba where there are many rural communities, and so I just wanted to ask you the following, given that you are from a rural community in Saskatchewan. In your opinion, why were most of those communities established and built where they were built?