Mr. Chairman, we put this paper together because we think we take a rather progressive view nationally in our approach to self-government negotiations. The principles that we list are fairly wide-ranging. We use words that perhaps could, upon discussion with aboriginal groups, alleviate their concerns. We used "territorial" to define a central government because if we say we should be one central government, the animosity level rises incredibly. When we say "central," for instance, people think I'm talking about one government, no community governments, no regional governments, just one central government. I learned the lesson the hard way. Now we use the word "territorial" to mean that in a single western territory, there will be a territorial government made up of at least two, perhaps three, levels of government.

The principles are there. Some of them we have no choice. For instance, we think self-government arrangements must respect the Canadian Charter of Rights. We don't see any way around that. There are other draft principles that different groups have taken offence to and have questions about, certainly with the wording. I asked for consultation because I want to know what they think of these principles in the draft paper. That's what we're doing right now. The Deh Cho has made very little response to it.

As I say, if the whole paper is objectionable, then we need to know why. If it can be clearly articulated, then we may be convinced that, perhaps, the very people we want to help don't want our help at all. If that's the message, we're going to take that very seriously and bring it back to Cabinet. Thank you.