Mr. Chairman, the Member is right. It was a requirement on the turnover from the federal Crown to the GNWT, that we would explore the options for privatization. In doing that, the two reports, the Abbott reports, were commissioned to take a look at the option of privatization and what the best way of doing it is.

The privatization option that came forward was to keep the Power Corporation in one part, not to split it up, which would make the best sense to balance and stabilize the customer base. That is what we looked at.

Now as we proceed and go forward -- and the Member is quite right, he was not here when I tried to answer that question before -- there isn't a consensus out there. There is a lot of interest, particularly from aboriginal groups, but there isn't a consensus on how we go about it. As well, in this Legislature, there is no consensus on that. As all the Members know, we have a very heavy legislative timetable for other areas we have to look at. I have circulated the work that was done on the legislation according to the Abbott report on the one unit.

So these are the areas that were explored and were put forward. Every now and then you have to measure how much work can be put on the legislative timetable. As all Members know, in order to do that, there has to be some type of consensus if we are going to talk about one unit. At this point, I believe it is just not there. There are many people who are interested. Some communities are talking about taking over their own power corporation. Other regional groups are saying take over the regional distribution area and are suggesting that the territorial government turns it over for one dollar and then they operate it.

Part of this whole issue is that at the time the studies were done, this corporation's estimated value was $80 million. I don't know, given the circumstances, whether the $80 million is still the figure. There is much work to be done in terms of understanding this whole thing. There is a lot of concern about the subsidy and that if it is privatized, the territorial government could not put their hands into the coffers of the Power Corporation and demand that a dividend be paid whether there is a profit or not. So these things are not really understood.

For example, we have a number of utilities, in the marginal communities where the territorial government has paid 75 per cent of the cost with Northland Utilities, that don't pay a subsidy. These are issues that aren't clear enough to the interested groups. I don't believe we have the time, given that the mandate of this Legislature is a year from today, to satisfy the concerns and issues out there. That is what I meant by this statement.