Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Following up on Mr. Ootes' remarks, with respect to the consultation and our efforts to have a new constitution in place for the western Arctic, I do appreciate the Minister's clarification in the House yesterday, that the facilitators that will be going into the communities will be also talking about the other two models. I believe that there has been, as the Minister himself indicated, some not so favourable reaction to the main model that was put forward, but I think that if you look at all three of the models and take certain parts from each one and you blend them, so to speak, that there is something there that I think would be saleable and satisfactory to most of the people in the western Arctic.

Because it would appear, for some, that the model put forward is the recommended one, what it has done, unfortunately, has driven people to the other extreme, which is to say that we want to keep the status quo. The problem with the status quo is that is does not address the most fundamental basic principle of what we are trying to do and that is to bring together aboriginal self-government and public government. The status quo in no way addresses that aspiration. I think that it would be the right approach to make sure that all three models are brought to people's understanding and one in particular, which is the 18 Member model, is one which I think has a tremendous amount of merit and addresses quite a number of concerns that I have heard.

Having said that, the ratification process is another issue which is one that has raised a lot of concern, but I think when people put it into the perspective that safeguards being built into the ratification process do not hurt, because I think that we would have something far from political peace and harmony if there is even a perception that one sector of our population in the west could force an arrangement on another sector and I think that would make for unsettled and unhappy arrangement for many, many years to come. If the ratification process does have to include safeguards to make sure that the majority of, for example, both aboriginal and non-aboriginal people support the presentation, I do not personally have a problem with that, because we want this to be an arrangement and a bringing together of these two types of government that is going to be workable. Something that is imposed on one side or by one group of people is not going to be workable in the long run. Those are my comments on the constitution and the ratification process. Thank you.