Thank you. Madam Chairperson, I was not going to make general comments other than my introductory remarks. However, since the process of the consultation was brought up, I feel I have to comment as well. This whole process with Bill 15, the court case by the Friends of Democracy which compelled the government to come forward with Bill 15, in order to comply with the 25 percent variance, has created tremendous animosity from the people living in the smaller communities towards the larger communities and, in particular, to the community of Yellowknife, in which I reside. Reflecting back on my campaign four years ago, people commented to me that they were afraid that Yellowknife would become an island by itself, that with constitutional development and whatnot, Yellowknife would become isolated from the rest of the communities. I saw this process bringing that isolation further. Having been born and raised in the Northwest Territories, not planning on going to retire in Kelowna or someplace like that, I felt it would be disrespectful of myself not to go to the smaller communities to listen to the people. I am glad I went. I know it was not a popular thing to do. There has been a lot of press about how it is a junket and a waste of money, all the rest of that. But to the 30 other communities out there who are not getting MLAs are very, very concerned.

It is not a matter of aboriginal people versus non-aboriginal people. In the communities that we went to that were not receiving more MLAs, particularly in Fort Smith and Fort Simpson, there were a great deal of non-aboriginal people who made presentations as well. They are just as concerned as the aboriginal people. They are very concerned that their voices will no longer be heard, that the scarce resources will not be fairly distributed anymore, that the larger communities will totally dominate this Legislative Assembly and the money, the budget that the Legislative Assembly gets.

I think it has to be stated as well that we heard in those communities that the people from the larger centres from the committee not coming to the smaller communities to hear their concerns was a reflection, a justification of their fear, because it was showing their contempt for the smaller communities in not even bothering to come and listen. That is what we heard out there. As I say, I think for me it was good to go, because just listening to and hearing aboriginal leaders saying that they did not like this -- we get that all the time. People say, well, that is Gary Bohnet, that is George Kurszewski, of course he is going to say that. But when we went there, we heard the ordinary people expressing their fears of what may happen in the future. We heard from aboriginal as well as non-aboriginal people. I think that while there may have been some work done in the past, there was never this situation before that was being discussed. People were more concentrated in their comments on this particular issue.

With that, Madam Chairperson, I must say that I am glad to hear that the Cabinet agrees with a lot of our recommendations, and I hope that they are going to implement them. There has been a great deal of animosity created towards Yellowknife in particular, not only by Bill 15, as I say, but by the Friends of Democracy's court case, to begin with. Living in Yellowknife, I do not want to be living on an island myself. I certainly hope that we can do the few things that we have suggested to bring some measure of relief, some measure of comfort to the smaller communities, to the people living in the regions out there who are very, very frightened by this bill that we are going to pass in the next little while. Thank you.