Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was hoping the Member would say that even if we all stayed poor together, he would still continue to support our valiant efforts to get out of our present predicament.
Mr. Speaker, there are indications that the federal government will be prepared to look at a draft economic strategy and provide some resources to support us on that. The devolution process, the cost to move the devolution agenda along has yet to be addressed. The cost for setting up an intergovernmental forum has yet to be addressed with the federal government. There have been some suggestions as to how that may be done. They are very general and by no means do we think anyone should be accountable for the initial remarks that have been made regarding that in our discussions with Mr. Martin and Mr. Nault.
We know that in the Atlantic region for instance, there have been specific dollars for oil and gas development, somewhere in the neighbourhood of $250 million, specifically set up for the governments in that area to get into oil and gas development. We know that the federal government is open to the idea of project specific dollars that could be made available to the North to realize some of these things.
I know that there is a basis set for what could be some very productive discussions in the next month or so. Once the session is over, we hope to set up meetings again to build on the initial contact and initial basis we have set for further discussions. That is the extent to which we have done our work.
As the Member would know, last week when we were in Ottawa, it was at the height of a filibuster by the Reform Party and the Bloc Quebecois. In spite of that, we did have some meetings. It was done in spite of the fact that there was controversy on the eve of the Liberal convention about the leadership. In spite of that, the Prime Minister, Mr. Martin and Mr. Nault, when we met with them, gave us their undivided attention. They were relaxed, focused, and as I said, keenly interested in the views we shared with them. There is a commitment to meet and meet again shortly to build on the initial discussions we started. Thank you.