Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have looked very carefully at the New Directions paper tabled by the Government Leader, and I have one concern which I have shared with the chairman of the standing committee on finance and also with the Minister of Finance. It concerns the decentralization of the Science Institute of the Northwest Territories. About six years ago, the federal government commissioned a study on the establishment of a Polar Commission which would provide Canada, as a major polar country, with a science institute or commission that would coordinate all northern science. Three years ago the federal government passed an act creating this commission which provided for a northern office. When people in Yellowknife met with the commissioner who came to examine this issue in the NWT, we told him that he should have a northern office when this legislation is put together. That is exactly what happened, and that commission is now in place. Mr. Whit Fraser was appointed to head it up.
Now the possibility of establishing a northern office, combined with the Science Institute of the NWT, seems to have been lost because you decided to get rid of it. I think that was bad planning; it was not thought through very carefully. I would urge the government to rethink that one issue because I believe that science is of interest to us all, and It has to play a co-ordinating role in one location. Thank you.