Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, in response to the honourable Member in regards to adequate funding, the ministry is a small department and the honourable Member made reference to the fact that this department used to have substantially more in the budget in the past. Since about a year ago, the direction from the different standing committees was to take the committee transfer initiative out of this ministry and pass it on to Municipal and Community Affairs, and that we did. At the same time, the Intergovernmental and Constitutional Affairs was also moved out of this ministry and moved into the Department of the Executive. Hence the reduction in the amount of resources and people that we have in this ministry.

This ministry, even though it is small, is a very important ministry and we are dealing with very crucial and sensitive issues that are going to effect all of us in the north and into the future, especially when we are dealing with the development of a new constitution and, at the same time, with representing this government and when we are sitting down with the aboriginal First Nations, when we are discussing self-government initiatives. So even though this ministry is very small, it is a very crucial one and, hence, the resources that we have there is what we have to work with and as we see that we need more resources, such as we have for the constitutional talks, we are able to secure some funding to carry on the work from the Government of the Northwest Territories, as well as from the feds.

So there is some funding there for carrying out this constitutional development work and, as for having more participation in the self-government talks, we are requesting in the supp that we are going to be needing additional resources as well and as we move along in these processes and we come to situations in the future where we may require additional resources, then we certainly are going to be pursuing that as well into the future. But at the present time, the budget is what we have to work with and that is what we have in the business plan for approval. Thank you.