Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, on Saturday, March 3, 2001, there was a full slate of meetings in the community of Fort Smith. Attending the various meetings were the Premier, the Deputy Premier, the Minister of RWED and Finance, Mr. Handley, and the Minister of Justice and Aboriginal Affairs, Mr. Antoine.
Mr. Speaker, the meetings started as soon as the plane came in from Yellowknife with a brief meeting with the mayor and SAO. We then moved into the very important meeting with the Premier, Deputy Premier and the Minister of Finance with the South Slave Metis Tribal Council. We then had a very healthy lunch at the Western Arctic Leadership Program, followed by a public meeting where the Premier made a very positive statement about Taltson. This was followed by a short meeting with the Salt River First Nations Band. The folks got on the plane at four o'clock, after about five hours of continuous meetings.
Mr. Speaker, the focus of most of the meetings was the need to proceed with the Taltson project and the need to garner political support to let the people in the public meeting know what the plans of the government were on this very important issue. I think that goal was achieved. There is a sense now that we have to move forward to get the detail and the facts that we need to put on the table so that the public, the aboriginal governments and the territorial government can sit down and start looking at how we move ahead.
I would be remiss, of course, not to acknowledge the fact that while the Deputy Premier was there, she had the opportunity to take part in the graduation over at the SALT program where there were some classes being graduated out of the Pentecostal Sub-Arctic Mission school. We had the benefit of her being able to do that. The Minister of Justice also took the opportunity, Mr. Speaker, to tour the justice facilities and see how things were running in that part of his mandate.
I would like to express my gratitude to the Ministers for coming down, as well as the staff they brought with them, for giving up their Saturday. They were very important meetings, very important topics, and I think it was worth the effort. I would like to publicly acknowledge and thank them for coming to Fort Smith to take part in these meetings and help move that critical Taltson project along. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
-- Applause