Mr. Chairman, most of the aboriginal organizations are funded through the federal government, either through the Secretary of State or the Department of Indian Affairs, and other groups get funding through the fact that they have several claims. For years, this government and Legislative Assembly has agreed to make it a level playing field at least for the Metis who are not given core funding by any government, at least not by the federal government or the Secretary of State. The territorial government has taken on the responsibility of giving core funding to the Metis because they do not get funding from anywhere else. We do support the Metis in their struggle to be recognized and to enhance their development as a people.
We have decided that we are not going to get into core funding of any other groups at this time. To open the door would lead to, I think, a further off-loading by the federal government, and it would be impossible for this government to take on the kind of financial cost that would be incurred by us if we said we would provide core funding to other groups. The amount of money we are talking about is huge. We are not prepared to provide core funding to any other groups, but, as I say, we are open to doing business on special projects and to help groups on special occasions although we have identified no particular pot of money for that.