Mr. Chairman, just recently, since the implementation of the Affirmative Action Program, we have seen trends in the existing public services and the aboriginal percentage. It must have been just recently that aboriginal employees, or northerners, have benefitted from working with this government. We have a situation, we have to say that we need to develop a benefits package, or employment package, that reflects the situation of the north now.

I realize that Ministers, when they first got in, took a reduction in pay of $5,000, and Members are entitled to one vacation travel a year. Civil servants have two, people are still entitled to receive removal costs when they get hired up here, and if they decide to quit, their removal costs are covered too. Those are all situations which do not really reflect the north. We should be able to say that if there is a commitment on the part of the public service, one vacation should be good enough, like everybody else is receiving. We also have a situation, where classroom assistants are not given vacation pay, but they are given something equivalent to the amount of gas they use, to go out on the land. Again, that is a different arrangement all together.

There are bits and pieces of differences between the Union of Northern Workers, and the public service, and the N.W.T. Teachers' Association. You have to combine all of those, and look at them to see what would be the most equitable, what would we as aboriginal people, as northerners, say is a good package for the people that are working up here. No more, no less than anybody else.

Mr. Chairman, during the time that the Minister indicated that he was going to pass legislation with regard to employment, legislate the people back to work, or to legislate their wages. I received a lot of letters from my constituency, outside my constituency, and a lot of them are not people from up here, that really do have concerns. I mean, the members in my constituency are the ones that should be fighting and complaining, but they are not saying too much with regard to what they are getting, or what they have. I would think that, if we were to develop a package that properly reflects the north, I do not think anybody would be opposed to anything being developed to that effect.

Right now, we are still feeding the bureaucracy, regardless if it is 1.8 percent for the second year increase, the fact still remains that, whatever percentage increase you get, it means a reduction on the other hand for programs being delivered. You are going to see the deficit, not come to zero, but it will increase to feed the bureaucracy. My concern is that the communities are doing their part in making sacrifices, the sacrifice that they are making is, this is how much we have got, this is what you get, live within that means. We are not saying the same thing to the bureaucracy, or the civil servants. There is still a demand for them to have a salary increase. They are not saying that they want to give up this, because maybe it does not really reflect the times. Maybe I am not listening to the radio, but I am listening to something. I certainly am not hearing anything with regard to the people that are responsible to provide those services.