Thank you, Madam Chair. There are many issues that are facing us as Legislatures in this particular term. They have been ones that have been very difficult to get into and very difficult to tackle.

Deficit being one, division being another one. The constitutional process is another one that is difficult to bring about because it requires a great deal of consultation, a great deal of thought by everyone, to ensure that we do reach a constitution that is palatable to the majority of the population. I did ask the Minister some questions in the House the other day. I would like to refer to some of those again with the viewpoint of clarifying, for the public and myself, some of the approaches that are being taken.

The area that I would like to know a little bit more about from the Minister, is the process. We will be sitting in this House for a number of weeks yet and, after that, we will be available to participate in the public consultation area. The area of concern I have or the question that I have, rather than concern, is, who will make up the individuals that will be doing the consulting in addition to the MLAs? How will a report be compiled and, following that, will that report come back to the western Caucus for review, for us to have an opportunity to look at it before it goes to public ratification? I did ask the Minister the other day about the ratification process but I am still not clear if the ratification process has been defined yet. I think, before it goes for public consultation, the public wants to know, how will this be ratified. I think it is a very legitimate question.

The Minister stated the other day that they are bringing Partners in a New Beginning back to the table as the document to be discussed. I would hope that he is going to clarify, or the group will clarify for the public, what the other two proposals are, with some very good balanced information. As we know, Partners in a New Beginning received a lot of very, very negative reception and it was not just limited to the community that I live in. It was in a lot of areas. The Globe and Mail editorialized on that and I do not think we can take that lightly. Rightly or wrongly, it has been done. Other publications followed suit, the Edmonton Journal, the Alberta Western Report and, yes, they are very - what could we call them - to the right style of publication. They are not a left, leaning type of publication. Very, very conservative.

My concern is that people will get adequate information when this whole process goes in before the public. Perhaps the Minister could clarify the other area. What were the concerns of the federal government? He addressed the concern that timing is important and their funding but I did not really get an indication from him of the exact concerns that the federal government had.

Then, perhaps the Minister could also address the whole question ... there seems to be a push to put this through and we seem to be under this tremendous time crunch. Now, what is the necessity for that? I guess I am raising this question so that the public can understand the wherefores and why this is receiving such priority. Certain members of the public are of the opinion that, why can we not take a little more time with this? So that we have all been properly... it is not rushed through. It does not look like it is rushed through. We do proper consultation on a timely basis and, does it really matter if we have a new constitution by April 1st, 1999 or April 1st, 2000? So, perhaps the Minister could clarify why is this time schedule here.

I think that I would like to digress for a moment on another subject, Madam Chair. That is the division of the territories. I think the government did respond to Footprints 2. There were two areas I was concerned about. The government has addressed one area of employees and that the GNWT employees be assured positions in the new Nunavut government. They did address that in their reply. The second item is, I was very pleased to hear Mr. Ningark's comments with regard to their interest in continuing service relationships with the western government because that is ultimately very, very important for both territories that we be here to be able to supply a service if Nunavut is not yet in the position to supply its own service and that we continue to have relations in certain areas that may be important to carry on with such things as the Power Corporation and Workers' Compensation Board. I realize that this is still subject to discussion, but to me, I appreciated Mr. Ningark's comments. Thank you, Madam Chair.