Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On that note, there are a number of transfers which have happened in the past without the involvement of the treaty chiefs or aboriginal groups, back in 1969 and 1970 and on down the line. You have the Housing Corporation transfer, Education and Social Services, and now the health billing dispute. The argument the federal government is making is that the health billing dispute is part of the devolution which has been carrying on, and part of devolution is the Housing Corporation. That is the argument. All along, treaty Indians and aboriginal people in the north have had no input in what they call devolution. This is one of the areas of dispute where it has to be cleared up.

What are the fiduciary responsibilities which the federal government has to aboriginal people in the north, particularly if you have treaties? You have Treaty 8 and 11 which were signed up here. What kind of responsibilities does the federal government have toward people who have these treaties? In the meantime, you have transfers which have happened, and housing is one of them. There is no place that I can recall where the responsibility for housing for people who have treaties has been devolved to this government along with the funding that goes with it. For how many years have we been dealing with it?

I mentioned earlier that I served on the board of directors for the NWT Housing Corporation and at that time I was chief. I asked the board, at that time, to look at the treaty responsibility of the NWT Housing Corporation, and I have never received a clear answer or a clear indication at all from the NWT Housing Corporation staff who did research for us on what the responsibilities were. It might be some place buried in your department. I know they hired someone at one time, for a period of time, to do the research. I do not know what the findings were.

My point is that the responsibility has to be cleared up. It has to be made absolutely clear what the responsibility for treaty Indians are with the territorial and federal governments in terms of housing. I know the chiefs have always made that point, and this will be a contentious issue forever if we do not deal with it. I would like to somehow have it dealt with once and for all. I just want to leave that as a comment, Mr. Chairman.