Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the western constitutional process is still under way. The Constitutional Working Group has had a series of meetings. In fact, we had a meeting last night and we intend to have another meeting again tonight. I would like to report that this government has committed to put some funding into a consultation process, as well the federal government has also made a commitment to fund this process. Jointly, we should have some funding to go ahead and start a consultation process into the communities. In fact, the Constitutional Working Group has been working on a work plan, and we still have to sort some of that out, but the intention and the direction is to go ahead and begin consultation between now and the end of March, and hopefully into April, May and June. Like I said, we still have to sort out some of the work plans and the scheduling, timing and so forth still has to be agreed upon. Generally the direction is to go ahead.

There is concern by the federal government in regards to the Partners document that we tabled in the House in October. Their concern was with the content of it which was a model that we put forward. Throughout the last couple of months, since we tabled that document, the officials of the Aboriginal Affairs have been meeting with the federal officials trying to see what kind of commitment the federal government would have towards this document. I would like to say officially that there is support for the principles of the document from the federal officials which is a good sign.

They are concerned about the model. We said all along that this package was for public consultation and once it was out people would have opportunity to comment on it. We have heard a lot of comments on it and now with the funding that is in place, we intend to go ahead and go into the communities and explain the document and get feedback from people. The intention here is to revise this document as we get the feedback from people. That was the intention all along. Thank you.