Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I did have the wonderful opportunity to spend some time with Mr. Martin during his trip north when he went to Iqaluit and to Yellowknife to sign the two new agreements and it did provide me with an inordinate amount of time with Mr. Martin and I appreciate that. During that time, I discussed with him the fiscal condition, east and west, as we move into the future. I asked him to look five years out and indicated to him, this country, east or west, does not want to continue to be a ward of the state. I said this many times. We really want you to give us some of the tools that are necessary for us to be less dependent. I am an economic realist. We are not going to be independent, at least not in the next five to ten years, but we could be less dependent.

I believe Mr. Martin, at least politically, understands the desire of northerners in this House and hopefully the two new Houses, that is a laudable objective to try to achieve and indicated to me that he was prepared to work with myself and my colleagues, along with Ms. Stewart, who has the lead ultimately in trying to accomplish that. It certainly was my intention to ask Mr. Martin for a meeting with Ms. Stewart, along with the Premier and Mr. Kakfwi. We will see what unfolds over the next two days and if the new leader wishes to continue to pursue that objective, I will be only too happy to work with him, whoever he may be, for us to get to the table with the political leaders, give us some direction, then move forward in terms of working out the details.

I am not suggesting for one minute that this is an initiative that is going to happen over night, but I am suggesting to you that both Ministers, in my discussions with them, appear to be sympathetic to the objectives that we are trying to achieve. We need to reinforce that with them and then move on to a working out with the colleagues, a table, and see if we can move forward. I am suddenly hopeful and optimistic that I can at least conclude before I leave office, an agreement that we can move forward on this important initiative. Thank you.