Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We like to think we are. We know that we have to work with the producer or the developers as well as with the regulators. The federal government, groups like Industry Canada, Natural Resources Canada, Indian and Northern Affairs, will play a role. They need to find some ways to coordinate their work with us, or we do, mostly. As well, we need to coordinate our work with the aboriginal organizations or the aboriginal leaders to ensure that we know of the efforts they are making, we recognize the efforts, and where we can we support them in work and put our efforts in coordination with them.

We know that the federal government is prepared to work with us on that. We have asked for some money to provide support to the aboriginal groups so that they can get adequate advice and support in their quest to build and manage a northern pipeline. We need to work with the regions in the communities. We are providing them with some dollars as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am still looking for some indication that the department will be seeking some kind of a framework or an administrative arrangement that will be able to bring all this together, if you will. The phrase that we often use is a "one-stop shop", right now, if some inquiry came out of the blue and said "I would like to know something about oil and gas or the gas development in the Northwest Territories". I am wondering who or what office I would send them to start with, because it is certainly evident that there are many tentacles starting to grow from this thing. This is a good thing. We need to build our capacity, but to centralize and coordinate is what I am looking for, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We do not have anything outside of the department as of yet. That probably would happen if it were something that is of interest to the federal government and the aboriginal representatives. At this time in the department, we have minerals, oil and gas division that is under Doug Matthews. This is the section that deals with all of our activities with regards to minerals, oil and gas. But there is no "one-stop shop" identified at this time outside of the department.

Mr. Nitah.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, a number of years ago, we had three departments: Economic Development and Tourism; Renewable Resources; and Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources. When the federal government reduced our budget, we undertook to form one department out of three. The target was to initially save $5 million. About two months into the exercise, we were asked to cut $10 million. We met that target, and what resulted from that was a new department called Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development.

We think that we can make the argument that it has been a good approach to a "one stop shop" to deal with economic development. It has been efficient. We have saved ongoing costs of $10 million to the government and reduced the size of headquarters considerably. So, at this time, there are no intentions to review that with the idea of creating two or three departments, where one is currently serving the needs of this government. Thank you.

Mr. Nitah.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I do not see the issue anywhere here in the interim appropriation, but it is always good to revisit larger issues from time to time. There is no question that we have a morale problem in the department. We had a lot of uncertainty when we first set up the department. Some felt we were constitutionally incapable of balancing, in a fair way, environmental concerns with wildlife concerns with interest in developing the economy, creating jobs, getting diamond mines to open and operate. But I think that we have dispelled that, and not through grandiose statements, but by the fact that BHP Diamonds is operating a mine, and Diavik is hopefully on its way to realizing that.

We have also shown the commitment to handle environmental issues and wildlife issues. This has been well done. We are currently setting up to do a huge undertaking in writing up the Wildlife Act, as no one has tackled that in over twenty years. We have successfully completed a Protected Areas Strategy, and we have, I like to think successfully, to date managed to get a substantial benefit out of diamonds that was not made readily available in the beginning.

Again, we have done that through a one-department approach. So the argument can be made that there is a substantial reason to believe that the idea of putting the environment, the wildlife, the economic initiatives under one department was a wise one, and it has substantially benefited this government and the people in the regions and communities. That is truly what I believe.

In any case, if there was some possible merit in thinking that we would be better served to have two or three departments again, we have even less money than we did a number of years ago. So there is no way that we can ever get Members, like the Member for Thebacha, to agree that we should create more jobs at the headquarters level, and proliferation of the bureaucracy would meet with very staunch opposition. I happen to disagree with the Member. Thank you.

I think Mr. Minister, if we could avoid using people's names, just so we do not have other people taking offence to comments. So if we could keep peoples names out of our statements. General comments? Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The departments provided information to the committee, breaking down its operations and maintenance, capital and so on. For example, under integrated resource management, there are actually seven areas where it is integrated resource management.

I believe, that for example, the first bullet is integrated resource management and in brackets 'dc', does that mean Deh Cho? Then integrated resources management 'ev', one is 'hq' that has to be headquarters. Another one is 'ns-dr'. I do not know if that is Dogrib region. And then 'ns-ns'. Could we get some clarification on that? This is information that was provided by the department for review.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is correct. Those are designated for different regions that we have within the department.

Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can he break that down, because there are a couple here such as 'vq'. I am not sure which one that is. And then 'ns-dr' and 'ns-ns'. Is that North Slave? I am not too sure of those two. Could we get clarification on that?

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The first one, 'dc' is Deh Cho, 'ev' is the Inuvik, the Mackenzie Delta Beaufort area. Headquarters is 'hq'. The next one is North Slave, which is the Dogrib region. The next one is North Slave-North Slave, which is everything but the Dogrib region in this area. The next one is South Slave, and the last one, 'vq', is the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Could we get information in the area of integrated resources? Is that the combination of oil, gas, diamonds, and environmental area? Can we get clarification on that?