Mr. Speaker, I can't take credit for concluding these arrangements. It's been a team effort by different Members of Cabinet and many of our staff across all departments. So, I want everybody to know that many people worked on it. From the federal side, I would like to compliment Mr. Ron Irwin for making John Rayner the person we negotiated with most of the time. He's a person, I believe, who understands the Northwest Territories and has been very reasonable with us.

With regard to the Inuvialuit participation costs, Mr. Speaker, the federal government had up to $186,000 in its budget for the last six, seven or eight years that should have flowed through this government to enable Inuvialuit participation on boards of management, particularly in the wildlife area. Through some mix up in paperwork, it hasn't been arranged and, consequently, the Government of the Northwest Territories was funding the Inuvialuit to participate on these boards and activities without being reimbursed by Ottawa.

As I said, it has taken some time but we were able to resolve it last week. The Inuvialuit, the Government of Canada and ourselves agreed that the Inuvialuit final agreement would be amended so there would be a contribution agreement between Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories, and a contribution agreement between the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Inuvialuit to enable funds to flow from DIAND to us and on to the Inuvialuit.

Mr. Braden is currently in Ottawa today meeting with Mr. Rayner and putting the last touches to the agreements. Hopefully, he will bring back a letter of comfort to us that will say that Canada will flow the money before the amendment to the Inuvialuit final agreement, which could take some time yet. That would allow us to fund the Inuvialuit to participate on the boards and other activities that they required. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.