Thank you, Madam Chair. With regard to the Premier's statement, I support a large majority of what was said. There are comments in there that I basically feel have to be supported fully by everyone here, especially with regard to the question about not cutting in only one area. I think in the larger centres looking at the smaller communities that have not had the opportunity to manage themselves in the past, they have always been sort of dictated to from the top down. I think it's now time through this process of empowering communities and allowing them more responsibility, to say how those communities operate by ways of block funding and streamlining government. We need to allow the administration of a lot of these programs and services to be done at the community level, not from the top down. I think that's what we're looking at here to save revenues and consider cutting the deficit. But we have to look at it in the context of how we can save, not in the context of what am I going to lose. I think we have to look at it in the context of not winners and losers, but looking at a new way of governing the Northwest Territories.
We've had a system in the North for the last 30 years which was brought from Ottawa and imposed on people in the North who lived up here all their lives. We have been stuck in a situation especially from the smaller communities where you have band councils, settlement councils and hamlet councils. But there seems to have always been the clash between the aboriginal groups; the imposed government structure within those communities. I think this gives us the opportunity now to work collectively in the community formulating one central government system so that everything basically flows from one level; that your administration costs will be down with regard to how they conduct the meetings in the community without have to run through three or four different agencies. You'll be basically dealing with one group.
The same thing with the northern accord and the other issues that relate to aboriginal people. I think you have to look at that in the context that we have always had two levels of government here. We had a government that was in charge of band councils -- basically, Indian Affairs out of Ottawa -- and we had another government which was in charge of municipal affairs and communities. I think we have to look at a way of dealing with problems in the communities which always seem to be handed off from one responsible authority to another, especially if it's a federal issue such as a health issue in which basically the individual is usually stuck in the middle wondering where to go from here. With regard to what was imposed by the Premier in his presentation, I support it fully but I think people have to also realize that we cannot get back into the mould of saying well, if I'm going to lose, I'm not going to support this. I think we have to look at it in the context that this is change and change is basically for the betterment of all people in the North; we can't just look at the larger centres versus the smaller centres but have to look at it in the context of how government is going to be moulded to operate in the North for the betterment of everybody. Thank you.