Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there was some lack of clarity in it. As a result, the Premier had lawyers in the Department of Justice provide clarification. That clarification was provided early in October and settled the matter. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when did Minister Handley become aware that the NTPC board of directors was confused about the Executive Council minutes and what they meant? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I do not think the Power Corporation board of directors felt there was any confusion in their minds until they received direction from Cabinet sometime around October 8th, I believe it was. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Obviously there was some confusion in the minds of the NWT Power Corporation board of directors because they have clearly and public stated that they firmly believe they have the support of the Minister and of Cabinet in applying for the rate zone. My question again is when Minister Handley became aware of this confusion, what did he do? What steps did he take to clarify the confusion about what the Cabinet decision meant? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. When the issue of what the wording actually meant was relayed to me, then I immediately directed the Power Corporation to withdraw their single-zone application. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is probably a very key question, because I believe that the public has a right to know the answer to my last question in order to understand Mr. Stewart's resignation and his comments in the media. My question is, what did Minister Handley tell the chairman of NTPC when he approached him in July to say that they wanted to proceed with a single-rate zone. What did the Minister tell him at that time? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I believe it was actually at the end of September, or sorry, the end of June, following a Power Corporation board of directors meeting, that Mr. Stewart informed me that they intended to file a single-rate zone application. My feedback to them was that they have the authority to file the application that they were choosing to file. I was not going to argue with him. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the Premier. I indicated in my Member's statement that the deadline to register guns is January 1, 2003, a date that is quickly approaching. In the Northwest Territories, we have many hunters and trappers who depend on guns. Also, at the same time, we have in our communities very little access to phones, and there are not too many trappers who have access to the Internet.

I would like to ask the Premier if he can tell me, prior to January 1, 2003, what action and support is this government willing to provide to those aboriginal people and all the residents of the Northwest Territories to ensure that their guns are registered? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as Members are aware, the federal legislation passed some years ago. It is federal legislation. It is the responsibility of the federal government to make information available and provide assistance, so that all people across Canada are aware of the law, the requirements to be in compliance with the legislation and assistance that may be required. There were special provisions, I think, that were provided for aboriginal people. Some years ago, the Government of the Northwest Territories had offered to work with the federal officials to make sure that our people were not unduly burdened with this draconian piece of legislation. The specific assistance that we provide at this time, I am not aware of. I will be passing this on to the Minister of Justice so that we can get proper briefing from the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think we are all in the same situation as the Premier. We do not have a lot of information on this proposal because the firearms centres in both Hay River and Yellowknife are closed. It is very difficult to get access to information.

Most of our communities, the smaller communities, have limited access to phones and Internet. I would like to ask the Premier if he could tell me if we could at least provide some assistance through this government to have people gain access to phones or the Internet system in the communities.

We do have government offices. Currently they are not mandated to allow people to use their phones to make calls to the firearms centres in the south. I would like to ask the Premier to answer my question.

Mr. Speaker, many Members of this Legislature, previous Premiers and Ministers, for many years they have lobbied very, very hard against this piece of legislation. We said many, many times to then-Minister of Justice Allen Rock, do not do it. It is a bad piece of legislation. It is going to create an enormous burden on the tax payers. It is going to be cumbersome, hard to implement and very costly and provide very little benefit to the people of Canada.

The legislation went anyway. We did offer on a couple of occasions to find ways to work with firearms testing and to date I am advised that our government is no longer assisting in any aspect of this legislation. It costs a lot of money to register guns, to issue licenses, to set up this registry.

The costs, we knew, are going to be much higher than the federal government led people to believe and we know the last figures that came out a year ago were proving that point.

This government is not spending any money or any resources to assist the federal government in getting people to comply with their legislation. Thank you.