Well, thank you, Mr. Ootes, but I would have to ask unanimous consent of the Members to move back to Ms. Thompson. I would like to remind you that you did put a motion to limit this thing to one question. Do I have unanimous consent? Are there any nays to move back to Ms. Thompson. You do not have unanimous consent, Mr. Ootes. Questions for Mr. Antoine? Are there any questions for Mr. Antoine? Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this department has been working on a strategy for some number of months now. As you know, this government has had a transportation strategy in 1990, and they updated it in 1994. There are numerous requests for construction for roads throughout the whole Northwest Territories and, yes, this department has been working on a strategy. Unfortunately, we still have to do some fine tuning on it, and we, hopefully, would have something in place fairly soon. I think the Minister of Finance mentioned in the last couple of days that there is an attempt by himself along with the Minister responsible for Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development and the Premier to get together at some point fairly soon, if we had the time, and sit down to look at it one more time. So, yes, we have been working on an initiative. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Antoine. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the strategy calls for looking at the continuation of the reconstruction of Highway 3, between Rae and Yellowknife, which is already in our five-year capital plan to being next year. So, that is in the plans and will continue to be there. The Mackenzie Highway extension from Wrigley on down to connect to the Dempster Highway has always been in the highway strategy, as well as a road from Inuvik to Tuktoyaktuk. Another new initiative, recently, with the Slave Geologic Province there is, we will have to look at the Slave Province Corridor and other initiatives such as resource access policies. Most of these that we are looking at call for a substantial amount of dollars to do the work. Therefore, it is still quite a long ways off to attempt these, but what we are trying to do here is to propose that we consult with the stakeholder, including the private sector and aboriginal groups, as well as approaching the federal government to start looking at new ways of trying to secure funding for these initiatives.

I guess the honourable Member is right that it is more of a dream than anything else at this point in time. The funding part of it is the stumbling block, there are new approaches being undertaken throughout the rest of Canada in other jurisdictions. This government, through the Ministry of Finance, is looking at how private and public partnerships are reaching other jurisdictions when they try to build new infrastructures. I guess one other good example is that link between Prince Edward Island and the mainland, the bridge. There are different infrastructures throughout the country where these are attempted. Yes, we are exploring internally on how these were set up. We are looking at those possibilities. However, we are different up here that our traffic volume is very low and there is no way we could do the type of initiatives that were done in other parts of the country that are based on high volumes of traffic. Yes, we have to explore these. We have to look at consultation with the stakeholders in this area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. I am not sure I heard a question, Mr. Roland. Could you summarize that into a question?

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I think the Department of Transportation, in the last two years we have attempted to do that, and we will continue to do that. The initiative that the honourable Member mentioned about Jean Marie River is an initiative that the communities have been pursuing for quite a number of years. Within the last four summers, they were able to complete 27 kilometres of all-weather road. It is not designed the way we know the roads connecting us out of Yellowknife, but it is a smaller scale, and they are able to enjoy the highway on all- weather conditions. Therefore, it is substantially less costly than the type of roads than we have been building. Yes, we have done that.

On the winter road system, the last couple of years we were able to, with the help of the Legislative Assembly, have $700,000 a year for improving the winter road system continuing up from Wrigley up into the Sahtu area where we are improving the river crossings and will continue to do that. If we are able to acquire more funding of that nature, we will do more work. Certainly, we are looking at all kinds of avenues on how to pursue some sort of development of infrastructure. I must add that the building of new highways, I am told by the department, is really in the hands of the federal government.

However, the type of funding that we have received has been to improve on what we have. What we have been able to do is improve the winter road system and that helps in that area of development. We will look at other areas. The direction that is given to myself, as Minister of Transportation, is taken seriously and the department, with the resources that we have, we will look at what is possible. Hopefully, with a highway strategy and with the cooperation of the rest of the Cabinet and Legislative Assembly, we may be able to achieve a little more in that area. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Antoine. Questions for Mr. Antoine. I have Mr. Erasmus and Mr. Evaloarjuk in that order. Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. My questions are in relation to one of the building blocks again in the Agenda for Change which we had indicated we are going to take action on aboriginal issues. Mr. Chairman, I would like to know if the Minister is familiar with Treaty 8 and the Treaty Commissioner's Report?

Thank you, Mr. Erasmus. Mr. Antoine.

Yes, I am familiar with Treaty 8 and the Commissioner's Report. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Antoine. Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Is the Minister aware that in the Commissioner's Report the Commissioner indicates that he promised the Indians that signing the treaty would not lead to paying taxes of any kind?

Thank you, Mr. Erasmus. Mr. Antoine.

Yes, I am trying to recollect the exact text of the Commissioner's Report, but among a lot of other conditions, I think that was one of the conditions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Antoine. Mr. Erasmus.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Since we have agreed that we are going to respect aboriginal rights, treaty rights and aboriginal concerns and views in this document; does the Minister think it is proper that Treaty 8 Indians should still pay territorial income tax, although they have been promised they would never have to pay taxes in a constitutionally protected treaty in this report?