Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, Mr. Speaker, we are trying to take a coordinated approach with the federal government, with my colleagues, Mr. Kakfwi and others, in an effort to have a renewed fiscal relationship with them. When I have talked about it in the House, and I am sure I will talk about it in the future, part of that new relationship and plan that we are trying to put in place is clearly on the fiscal side. It is important for my colleague, and perhaps I should have said earlier, to differentiate between royalties and taxes. Royalties are an issue that are far more complicated when it relates to claims and First Nations, et cetera, than taxes.

In my discussions with Mr. Martin, I have clearly been talking about the need for the government, western and the Nunavut governments, to have greater access on the tax side. My colleague, Mr. Kakfwi, has been under discussions for many months in relationship to devolution, and you have heard him speak to it, which also includes the royalty side. It is really a collaborative effort on the part of Mr. Kakfwi and myself, and others, in an effort to get a different relationship with the federal government, so we could be less dependent on transfer payments, where there is an incentive for us to move forward on some of these initiatives that we can work out with all the players at the table, the stakeholders, if you want, and in particular, the aboriginal constituency as to how we are going to move forward in an orderly way to bring new revenues to the new Western Territory and ultimately to the new Nunavut territory.

If I may, since I have been given this opportunity, I would like to stress that it is an absolute priority if we are going to continue to deliver the kinds of services that are expected of us by the constituency at large. The status, right now, is that discussions are underway. They are preliminary at this stage of the game I have to be candid that I am optimistic that in the next four to six weeks we will have at least some discussions at a federal level. As a matter of fact, I spoke to Mr. Kakfwi and others just this morning, or earlier this afternoon about that. I hope that in the coming weeks we will be able to put forward a blueprint, a step-by-step of what we have to do to reach the goals we are all trying to achieve. That is, less fiscal dependence on grants, more independence in terms of the revenues that have been generated, particularly from the non-renewable resources side, et cetera. This is, the overall objective. The discussions are very preliminary and I was encouraged by my discussion with Mr. Martin before he left here two weeks ago, where he indicated to me a willingness to at least address the issue, and hopefully, put into place some kind of process where discussions and negotiations could be undertaken to achieve the end that we are all trying to reach. That is, greater access to the revenues being derived from the non-renewable resources and other industries that go on in this part of the country. Thank you.