Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 1, too, appreciate the work, New Directions, that cabinet has provided us in this document. I am pleased to see cabinet is finally making some decisions and giving people in the North some direction. I am also pleased to see that, if adopted, some of the principles that I operate under -- we have to be able to change and adjust with the times.

I assume that this document and the changes that are in it are part of or a first phase of a larger plan. If it is, it would be nice sometime shortly to see the larger plan. I am also concerned about some of the net impacts on regions and communities. We are getting part of the picture here, but we will not see a lot of the details until we get the fiscal budget of this government. That leads to the question: What impacts will these new directions have on the overall budget of the NWT?

We will not be seeing the total O and M or capital budgets until September, and I wonder, in the overall picture, what programs and projects are being added. What is being deleted? There is mention of 160 PYs being eliminated. I guess the question is, then, where, specifically, are they being eliminated from? What communities? What areas? And what changes have been made?

They are also concerned about some of the logic utilized in making some of these decentralization decisions. That begs the question, are some of these decisions being made to get ready for an eastern government and a western government?

Also, in the document there are two initiatives that are mentioned: the business incentive policy and the Housing Corporation projects; that the business incentive policy would be utilized before the federal government will accept it. I think that we have to also ensure that all our agencies, boards and commissions adopt and utilize the new business incentive policy. It just cannot work for' part of our Territories. Everyone that receives and uses government money has to accept and adopt these policies.

The one issue that Mr. Todd mentioned is the hiring and utilizing of northern people. It is very, very central that somewhere soon we adopt new policies and directions to hire North and hire North only. That means training and upgrading our training. We have to do it. We have to utilize our people. That is what creates the jobs. The jobs stay here. It enhances the revenue side of our budgets. These are some of the initial comments I had, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.