Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have not had this for very long. In going through this, when I first received it, you have to think of all of the other packages we have like this in our office that have been collected since we took office here. They all have strategies. There is a lot of work that has gone into this and the figures look pretty rosy, but they are all a pipe dream, I guess. An item sitting on the shelf if we do not have any money to put towards them.

One of the things that concerns me about it is that we are all doing all of these strategies on a hope. A hope that the federal government is going to come through with these monies. I think somewhere along the line reality has to set in as to how much money we can put in and still be waiting for the amount of money that the federal government is going to come up with.

One of the fears that I have is what we are seeing right now in our communities where we cannot look after the basics that we have right now. In the Department of Education, for example, we have set strategies and we like to come out and say that we have put a lot of importance in preschool kids to get them started on the right foot, to get them ready for education.

We have play schools out there right now that cannot afford to operate and there is no money in this government to put into them to get the kids started properly. Somewhere along the line, we are going to have to put priority on it and then be prepared to put some money into it.

I took one thing that Mr. Cleveland said, on the fact that they keep kids moving through school at a level that is going to get them to the alternative, to the top level, and at the same time be prepared to go on when they get there. I hear from teachers in my community that we lose and are still losing a lot of kids after grade 10 because when they get there, they are not ready for grade 10. They are not ready for grade 11. Between grade 10 and grade 12, we lose them because we are not putting the resources in to help them when they get to grade 10, for the ones who need extra help. It is a real concern that I have and I think that somewhere along the line we have to realize that we have got to do some prioritizing.

It is great to see a four-year plan to go ahead with this. When we talk about non-renewable resource development, I can go back to 25 years ago, when the Mackenzie Valley pipeline came to a halt. It came to a halt because aboriginal people were saying that they were not ready, they did not have the education to take part in resource development, and so Judge Berger suggested a ten year moratorium so that we would have a chance to settle land claims and self governments and educate our people to be ready to take part in resource development. This is not ten years later, this is 25 years later or 26 years later. The reality is that plans do not always work out here.

Now, how much are we going to put into this strategy, the tourism strategy, waiting for the federal government? While we are waiting for the federal government, we are taking money out of our budgets right now that are affecting some of the very basic programs that we have to help our people. I think we have to somewhere along the line decide what are the options we have. What can we do if the federal government does not come through with $14 million, they only come through with $6 million? Or if they do not come through with $6 million, what if they come through with $3 million? What do we do? Where do we prioritize? Do we just throw a little bit here and a little bit there and end up with not really a lot at the end of it, I guess? I fully commend the department and every department that puts a strategy ahead and wants to go along with economic development and resource development. I support that.

I guess the reality for me is that we have to see the money one of these days or it is going to be tough to go along with it. It is the same thing with the Northwest Territories regulatory system. Industry is still here. We are here now saying that we are ready to go. We are ready for development. We want development to come in, but industry is still saying that our regulatory process is one of the toughest ones to deal with. We have to make some progress. We have to put some things in place to encourage development. I think we are really slow in that area.

The other areas I have a problem with is that we are going to have to show we are ready to share some of this wealth around the Territories as well. The oil and gas sector supposedly is not a Yellowknife deal like the diamonds are. Yet what work is being done in oil and gas right now? A lot of it is being done in Yellowknife again. I mean, meetings are taking place about oil and gas. They are taking place here in Yellowknife again. There is no reason for that.

There is money tied in with these studies and these big conferences and these meetings. There is money for communities out there for these, if we send them out there. I would certainly like to see us start doing some of that to show the rest of the Territories that yes, we are interested in the whole of the Territories. I probably will have some more questions or comments on this before it all comes to a reality, but for now, that is all I am going to say, Mr. Chairman.