Mr. Speaker, when the community transfer initiative was first announced and engaged by this government, there was a view by most of us -- perhaps not all of us -- that it would be in the small communities, the one-council communities, where it would perhaps be the easiest to make progress in the area of transfers. What was implied was that the larger communities, the larger municipalities, would have the most difficulty because they are diverse and have some rather large and powerful cultural and political groups that would make it difficult to move forward on any sort of collective agreements.
In fact, the town of Inuvik has dispelled that myth. In Inuvik the chief and council, and the Inuvialuit community leaders have set up a working group. They have reached a framework agreement on how these groups propose to work together to negotiate community transfers with the Government of the Northwest Territories. We have looked at an implementation plan that is being advanced. It would have the different departments that are targeted, outline clearly what the minimum standards are and provide certain financial information that has been requested by the group, to them this month. We have agreed that some sort of a community transfer agreement, under the framework agreement, will be finalized by April, 1994.