Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think what is happening now after the regional directors have been released in our budget restraint exercise a couple of years ago, was that the existing superintendents of each of the departments have the senior management meeting on a regular basis and they are trying to coordinate among themselves a sense of working together. I think what I am hearing is that it is a difficult arrangement because each superintendent in some areas take the alternate on who does it. There is a need for a coordination of some sort.

We did this exercise because we are trying to put more say into the communities and of the community governments into the regional governments. It was done to try to accommodate that, but any time you make a change there are always some unexpected and anticipated problems that come out as a result of change. This may be an area where we need to look at some sort of a coordinating role to try to pull all these regions together. I agree I have been up to Inuvik as well, and it is a fairly large region and I think things used to function a lot smoother at one time when there was a regional director in place. Yes, I would be willing to look at this a lot closer and saying what we could do to have better coordination up there. It may be that there be an individual identified to solely do that. Maybe that is where we are going to go. I guess my answer to Mr. Steen is that, yes, I certainly would be willing to look at that if things fall into place.

Mr. Roland.

That will be Mr. Kakfwi first.

Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I am not going to ask for a letter of resignation. I think that the colleagues that have worked within Cabinet have a lot of loyalty and then there is honour and I believe that if any Minister is in trouble, I think that we all would be aware of it. Then, if it is serious enough and it will get to that, the Premier will ask for a letter of resignation and go that route. Again, there is a fair system that was set up here in the last while in this Cabinet that the Premier is the leader and he calls the shots and whenever somebody is out of line that it be his duty to inform the Minister that he is out of line. If it is serious enough, we will probably have to ask for their resignation and I think it will be honoured. Thank you.

Mr. Roland.

Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think we have been promoting all the opportunities that are there already when it comes to trying to create new employment. I think the Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment has initiated an employment strategy as a government strategy. The different opportunities are there, the whole area of mining, the whole area of the diamond mines. I think this government really put a lot of effort into trying to secure the whole process of as much employment for the north as they possibly can. I think the First Nations, too, are very aggressive in that manner and in diamond mines and they are able to secure some concessions so that maybe there will be as much employment in the north and in the local communities as possible.

There is a lot of potential elsewhere, like in the gas and oil field in the Inuvik area. There is an initiative on the part of the Inuvialuit, I believe, and we certainly encourage that. In the Sahtu there is going to be some work this year that is going to create employment in that area. Oil and gas in the Deh Cho area is very big and there is a lot of opportunity for training initiatives going on in that area. We encourage wherever it is acceptable by the communities to pursue these type of new areas. Again, in our own programs and services, through contracts we are able to have work being done in most of the communities. In the area of housing and in areas of construction, in the areas of maybe highway maintenance and so forth. In this way we continue to do that.

As for new strategy, certainly we are going to have to pursue that. There is the economic strategy that is underway and the transportation strategy is part of it and through the transportation strategy, if we are successful in obtaining some funding, I think that it will create a lot of employment. If we strategize, especially on the Mackenzie Valley Highway route, even the route right into Tuktoyaktuk, strategies come out and if we are able to find funding for them, I think that certainly is going to create some employment.

As for the overall economic strategy, I am not very familiar with it, however, that is also one we are supposed to address like there are different Ministers that are associated with, myself, Mr. Kakfwi, Mr. Dent, Mr. Ng, along with Mr. Todd. These are different portfolios that have some kind of attachments to the economic strategy because we are looking at trying to find some money through the Minister of Finance, through RWED, it generates employment and so forth.

Through Mr. Dent there is the training element. The educational element, through Mr. Ng is the social aspect of the whole thing and is right in line of what Mr. Roland is talking about is, once you create employment it alleviates the social problems. I think that we have to, as legislators, keep that in mind and I think once this economic strategy is further developed, I think we are going to look at it closer to see where it is at and where it is going. Perhaps, we may have to revitalize it and put more effort into it. Perhaps, I think there is work being done on it. However, I think there should be more input by stakeholders on the whole process. I think we need to, not only the Ministers get involved from departments, but the people as well in the communities who may have good ideas on how to deal with us in the economic strategy here for the west and as well as the strategy for Nunavut. Thank you.

Mr. Kakfwi.

Questions. Mr. Morin.

There were two questions there. I have Mr. Antoine first.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, yes, I believe in the aboriginal self-government position that this government has taken. There are provisions in the policy, now we will instruct our negotiators to sit down with the, for instance, the Treaty 8, Akaitcho territory leadership and the South Slave Metis to look at self-government, either it be a partnership model, or be a parallel system. These things have put to be in place with the western government's issue.

We have changed the policy so that it will accommodate them, because for many years, we have been negotiating self-government arrangements based on the inherent right to self-government with the federal government, which was to try to negotiate self-government arrangements through the public government system. We found out through the two and a half years of negotiations that is not the direction that First Nations want to go. If we truly believe in the inherent right to self-government, then they have the right to choose. It is their inherent right. We cannot tell them that, sure, we can negotiate self-government arrangements but you have got to do it through the public system. You cannot do that because that right is not there for us to direct them into what type of system of self-government they should choose. The choice is up to them. That is what they have been telling us all along, that we have the right to choose how we want to see ourselves and they want to have a working relationship with us. I believe that, as well, that even though they decide to take a parallel system, they will be in a position where they will be working with us as partners, because the reality is, we all live together here in the north. That is the position that I take on this one. I think I handled both questions. Thank you.

Mr. Kakfwi.

Mr. Morin.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the past three years, the Members of the Legislative Assembly, as well as Cabinet, worked very hard to balance the books of the government and worked very hard to ensure that when they moved into the creation of two new territories, we did it on sound financial footing. It raises some concern when I hear potential candidates saying that they are willing to spend $1 million to open communication into the regions, where there may be cheaper methods, but are both candidates committed to keeping a balanced budget for the Northwest Territories and as well as holding the line on the spending of the Government of the Northwest Territories, so that we do not go into debt?

Mr. Kakfwi.

There is only one other person in this Chamber that has not asked any questions yet. That is Mr. Dent. You have an opportunity, do you wish to?