Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have brief comments. It is a difficult area with the things that are changing all the time. We have a lot of tables on the go when it comes to negotiations. One of the areas when I became a Member of the 13th Assembly and still have today an area of concern, as the Minister was explaining to Mr. Nitah about working on behalf of all residents, I think that is a good thing because right now, as we know, our funding situation from Ottawa and what resources or revenues we raise from our own sources here in the Northwest Territories are very small and all these agreements are going to cost money to implement when it comes down to it.
Today we raised the issue on FAE/FAS. We hear about tourism and we would like to give it more money. We have got a contract with NWTTA that increases every year for the next couple of years dealing with the pupil-teacher ratio, all that requiring more money. We know that although we continue to get promising words from the Finance Minister right now, he still has not been able to get anything solid besides a handshake from the Finance Minister in Ottawa. So that is scary.
I would encourage Aboriginal Affairs to continue to work in this area in securing and identifying. I know the Department of Finance and FMBS, I believe, play a fairly large role in trying to identify actual incremental costs in other departments as well. So it is a collaborative effort from all departments. It has grown in the last number of years and Members have had concerns and mentioned that in our previous reports, but I think it is going to be an issue that is not going to get any easier because a lot of these tables have put the financing issue off the AIP, for example, and around before the final agreement and that will put pressure on this government to come up with the number, and accurate numbers, and identify those.
I know the Minister provided updates to Members on the different talks. He had a meeting with Minister Nault. It was interesting to see that Minister Nault said they would agree with paying 100 percent of incremental cost, but by their definition of incremental cost. So it is still wide open as far as we see. In those areas, I would encourage the work to continue because there is much work to do and we need to identify costs as well. This department's lead on negotiations at all the tables, on that issue I would ask the Minister to update us as to the areas when it comes to incremental costs and the federal government and the meeting he had with Minister Nault and if there is a little more to what they have been putting forward as incremental costs. Thank you.