Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Economic strategy update, Mr. Speaker, I will try to make it short and succinct. We have a draft report that the working committee is looking at, that is, the deputies. The Ministers will be given an opportunity to take a look at. It is a working document. It is not complete by any means. I have looked at it myself and there are, as other Ministers have told me, some loopholes in it. We intend to add to and subtract to the report as it currently sits. We hope that we can conclude in the next couple of weeks. I apologize for it taking so long, but there have been a great deal of difficulties which have occurred in the last little while that have involved some of the people. We hope to, in the next couple of weeks, get a working document put together that we can then communicate with the stakeholders out there as a working document, seek their ongoing input and eventually put in place a document that this government and future governments, hopefully, will move forward in advance.
The overriding emphasis, if you want, at least from my perspective, and I believe from my colleagues, is that there are four or five critical components to the way in which we do government. I have said on a number of occasions I really feel that perhaps economic strategy is not quite the appropriate way to describe it. Maybe it is investment north, I do not know. The four important ingredients are, as we said, in the west particularly, getting governance right and that is an important issue for the aboriginal and non-aboriginal constituency. We need a new fiscal relationship with Canada and in particular, in my opinion anyway, on the non-renewable resource side. I will be talking about that later on today and in the tax window. We need to take a look at the infrastructure needs in partnership with the federal government which includes all the Ministers, Mr. Antoine in Transportation; Mr. Dent in Education, Culture and Employment; Mr. Ng, et cetera, in his field and of course, Mr. Kakfwi, who is very active in economic programs. Our intent is to advance that agenda, at the end of the day, both north and south.
In my opinion, if I may, Mr. Speaker, there really are two audiences here. Obviously, you have an audience for domestic consumption as they say, and we need to do a self-analysis of what we are doing. I think that is a healthy thing to do. That is what we are currently doing and see if, in fact, the current programs that we are doing, we could do better. Mr. Kakfwi is working aggressively on a new economic agreement. I am optimistic, as others are, that we will be able to conclude, hopefully, soon, with the federal government, an understanding that additional dollars will flow. There have to be an examination internally if you want to know what we are doing. There has to be significant discussions with the stakeholders out there to ensure that we have a balanced point of view. Ultimately, the second audience is the federal government. That is the Minister of DIAND, Ms. Stewart. All of us are working very aggressively in that field and we need to, at some point, bring Mr. Martin into the equation so that we can get at least his tacit support on entering a new fiscal relationship in the tax window.
There is a great deal more to it than that, but in brief, in summary, as they say, I am working along with my Cabinet colleagues to move as quickly as I can to make sure the report encompasses both the large agenda, as well as a community-based one. I am optimistic that in the next two weeks, three weeks, we will be able to conclude that so that we can then get it out there to the constituency at large. Recognizing - let me be clear - that this is a working document and there has been - I freely admit - limited discussion at the stakeholder level; and we need to ensure that we find a mechanism or process to do that. I am confident we can. At the end of the day I hope that the document will be one document of many that will help guide and provide some advice to the remaining three months of this government, and more importantly, to the new government should they choose to take the document and move forward on it. Thank you.