Mr. Chairman, obviously Mr. Ballantyne's right but I would be less than candid with this House if I said that at the present time Ottawa's buying that. They're not buying it because they are living from year to year. I notice that the Standing Committee on Finance suggested a ten year deal on formula financing. My initial scouting down there revealed that they're not really interested. You'll notice in the Finance Minister's budget yesterday, he didn't go very far in making projections down the road. I know that's what we have to sell and I know we have to sell that dream, as well as future development in the NWT, both politically, economically, and constitutionally, and we have to sell that eventually we're going to be weaned from the federal government.
But, the fact of the matter is, it's not selling quite well right now. You have no idea how consumed they are with issues in Quebec. Quebec got attention right now when they wanted to lower the prices on tobacco. I mean, right now. It just consumed those people. They spent hours and hours discussing it. We are doing and selling the cases as well as we can, but when we talk about increasing dollars and so forth, they are only talking about decreasing right now. Long-term deals are just not in the cards.
I do agree, though, and I first tried the package deal in 1992. I think it is the way to go. As I've told the Standing Committee on Finance, I do have a package together that lists out the subjects of the package. They don't necessarily list out what we might trade back and forth. That's the package that Mr. Martin has before him and once they've agreed to sit down and discuss this with us, then we'll start going back and forth across the table.
I think we want it to be at the political level. There's no point in spinning our wheels, sending our employees down there back and forth when there have to be decisions made either at Cabinet level or in a Minister's office. We want it to be at the political level so that sitting at the table are two, three or five people who can make a decision and that decision will carry. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.