Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as most of us are aware, the Aboriginal Summit has written to Minister Stewart to outline extensively their strong concerns about what they see as the NWT constitutional crisis arising from the electoral boundaries court decision and they make six specific requests of the Minister. Mr. Speaker, I can, in fact, support some of those requests that the federal government publicly support negotiations of a political solution between the Legislative Assembly, GNWT and the aboriginal governments of the western NWT. I also am not opposed to the idea of amendments that would increase our terms from four to five years to bring us in line with other jurisdictions. I also think it would be a good idea for the federal government to join in and support an appeal of this decision based on the aboriginal rights questions raised by the Summit.

However, Mr. Speaker, as a Member of this duly elected public Government of the Northwest Territories, I cannot support the other three points, where they ask basically for the abolition of an elected public government in the western Northwest Territories. Mr. Speaker, I believe it is going to be critical for us, as a territory, to have in fact a strong central public government to work with our aboriginal partners to move ahead as a territory to provide standards, to provide support services to the people, all the people of the Northwest Territories.

I will continue to oppose 19 seats, I will continue to support the issue of an appeal, but I will also, under no circumstances, support anything or any calls to possibly abolish or put this House in jeopardy of limiting its rights to function as a duly elected body. Worse yet, I would not support the thought or the proposal to in fact request the Minister to turn over the running of the government to an appointed council or, worse yet, a federal civil servant. That would be a return to colonialism that would be unacceptable, I think, to all the people of the Northwest Territories. What we have to do is come up with a negotiated settlement, get the time to do that, so that we can resolve these problems as a territory, without having Ottawa come in and tell us what to do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

--Applause.