Thank you, Madam Chairperson. Madam Chairperson, this whole area of Northern Accord, devolution or northern control of northern resources and sharing control of our resources, it all means the same, Madam Chairperson. This government, with the Agenda for the New North, trying to meet all the leaders and trying to get people generally in the whole Northwest Territories to understand the Agenda for the New North, basically it has the Northern Accord or devolution as a key element. There are five elements to that agenda and they are all linked. The Northern Accord or sharing control of our own resources, is a key element to that agenda.

Since becoming Premier, and especially since January, we have been sharing this agenda with people in the north, people who are stakeholders in the north, the oil and gas companies the Honourable Jane Stewart, the Minister responsible for DIAND, and Paul Martin, the federal Minister of Finance. The agenda itself includes this very important key element, and I have to say that as far as I am concerned, the whole process has already started. The first step is to put everything on the table for the people in the north to see what it is that we are dealing with, and we are trying to get all the right information so that people see what we in the Government of the Northwest Territories and this Legislative Assembly have to grapple with in the next few years. As far as progress on this particular file, it is included in the agenda. I think we have shared the information. We have travelled to many communities. We still have to go to many communities. We have gone to a lot of events and we keep talking about this very important agenda and the key element to it is this devolution. The timing of it, to put a condition to this government to fast-track, to try to conclude it before the political makeup of the western NWT is changed is a very difficult task for us to do. I think the aboriginal nations and different organizations in the north are a very key part of this whole agenda. It is an agenda item that has be done very sensitively, and making sure that different organizations do not get the wrong impression of what we are attempting to do.

In that way, it will be difficult for us to say that we are going to fast-track it. I do not think I want to do that. I think that, even if we do not conclude it by election time, if October 4th is still the election deadline and if that is still when we are going to have an election, then we do not have that much time to do it. Even if it is later on, let us say February, March or even April of next year, there are some months there to do some work. There are indications by different aboriginal leaders, for example the Beaufort Delta leadership are supportive of this type of an approach. We have met with the chiefs, a few weeks ago here there were indications that they would like to explore that avenue. There are positive indications by different aboriginal leadership that they are willing to go that route and we are still talking to all the other organizations as well to make sure that they fully understand what we are trying to attempt.

I think it is safe to say that we have started the ball rolling on this. I do not know where it is going to end up, but the key component to this whole initiative is that the aboriginal organizations have to be onside on this one here. We have to work together in partnership with the aboriginal people, the territorial government and the federal government to make sure that this is successful. Thank you.