Mr. Chairman, this is a federal/provincial/territorial Finance Ministers' meeting. It is only a few hours long. It goes from 2:00 p.m. to probably 7:00 or 8:00 at night. This is an opportunity for all provincial and territorial Ministers to have input into the federal budget. There was a conference call of provincial and territorial Finance Ministers this morning. I could not be there because our House is sitting, but my officials were there. They will have, this morning, hammered out the main points that they want to make collectively.

In addition to that, I intend to continue to make the point that we need investment in the North because of our non-renewable resource developing economy and its demands on people, on training, on infrastructure and on services. I will continue to remind him that we have put together a non-renewable resource strategy at his request and that we need investment today. We are not in the same position as is the rest of Canada.