Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have the privilege of recognizing two of my constituents in the gallery today. Wayne Pringle, who is a lead hand in maintenance at the H.H. Williams Memorial Hospital who has been in Hay River for 12 years and worked at the hospital for the last 11.

Also, Bill Dalton, who hails from Newfoundland and who has come more recently and worked as an LPN at Woodland Manor for the past seven months. Thank you.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to recognize a number of people involved in the Quit and Win campaign. Volunteers that are well-recognized already in our community. Elaine Berthalet, I have known, had the distinction while under your watch as Minister, Mr. Speaker she is the coordinator of the Quit and Win advisory program for the Canadian Public Health Association.

Miriam Wideman is with our Department of Health and Social Services. Gail Nesbitt is a volunteer from Sport North. Arlene Ysako is here representing the Canadian Cancer Society and Rosela Stoes is the coordinator of the Quit and Win project. Thank you for coming today.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize two prominent Yellowknife citizens, they are constituents of mine and they have been recognized before but I would like to just recognize them as constituents, Fred Koe and Liz Wyman. Thank you.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it gives me great pleasure to welcome Ms. Betty Brockaway, Mr. Ray Davies and Mr. Terry Wright. All three are my constituents from Hay River. I would also like to welcome Bo Dalton and Mike Pringle. All of the above are members of PSAC Local 001 in Hay River. I want to thank them for taking the trip over to Yellowknife to be with us today.

I would also like to recognize my CA in the gallery.

-- Applause

At this time I would like to recognize Mr. Fred Koe from Aklavik, so people know for the record, where Fred comes from. Welcome, Fred.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday I made a statement about economic opportunities and infrastructure needs in the Northwest Territories. Today I would like to ask the Premier questions in that area.

Mr. Speaker, I understand that the federal government has suggested that they are unwilling to come up with anywhere near the $133 million we requested in the Corridors for Canada proposal. Given the lack of understanding and reasonable response from the federal government to our proposal, what is the Premier and this government proposing to do now?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, it is our job to continue to take our message to Ottawa and tell every Minister, every Member of Parliament who understands the Northwest Territories the agenda we have, the exciting future that we have laid out for ourselves, for our communities and the needed partnership that is being requested by ourselves with the federal government.

It is our view that that work is still not done, so we will continue to seek meetings with the federal Cabinet, with the outgoing Prime Minister, the next Prime Minister that is going to be coming along fairly soon, and every Member of Parliament. We will be doing that with members of the business community and perhaps Members of the Legislature as we develop our plans and strategy, so that we continue to lay out very clearly what it is that we need from this very reluctant partner we have identified in our plans that is the federal government. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think we all support the idea of going after more funding from the federal government, but we have to be aware of when the funds are not going to be available any longer. Is the Premier aware of the time table for final commitments of the $200 million or so that is available from the strategic infrastructure fund? When will it be fully allocated? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the federal government had given us full confidence that the Primer Minister and, at that time the Minister of Finance, Paul Martin, and virtually every Cabinet Minister that we met over the course of the spring and summer were on side. To this day, even the officials continue to tell us that ours was one of the best proposals they received from right across this country. I think it sort of went downhill when Minister Allan Rock got the assignment, and it went from what is deemed a strategic investment fund to what we thought and we feared, which would be a political slush fund, one that is allocated based on per capita, which always is a great winner for Ontario and for Quebec, no matter the quality of their proposals.

Under Minister Rock, we have been given, instead of the $133 million that we had some confidence that we would get a substantial amount of, we have been reduced to have been told that we should be grateful for the $20 million that have been identified for us. We still have no idea yet whether that is over four years and what the conditions are for getting that money. So we are continuing to push the point with our Member of Parliament and to seek meetings with Ministers. We will be continuing to return to Ottawa to keep delivering our message the best we can. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess we will not turn up our noses at $20 million, but again, it seems like we have been stuck with a down-payment only in our request here. If in fact we have one of the best proposals out there and we still cannot get the money, obviously it is politics that have to be played. How is the government positioning themselves to play a stronger game of politics in Ottawa to win this fight for more money?

Well, we know that some of the leadership hopefuls are more visionary than others, and there will be a leadership race underway very shortly, a much higher profile. We intend to be there. We know the leadership qualities of people like Paul Martin, the qualities of people like Allan Rock. So we are ready to comment on that. We have no doubt that it is going to be difficult, because all we have to offer is billions of dollars of potential revenue to the federal government, but only one Member of Parliament.

On a matter of votes, we are not important. What is important about us is the fact that we have an incredible economic future that we can deliver to Canadians, and especially our people. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The other side of the economic opportunities was the pipeline. Now that the energy bill, which would have provided a subsidy for Alaskan gas, appears to be dead, since Congress and the Senate could not come to an agreement on the bill, does the Government of the Northwest Territories now feel that issue is finished, or is it something that we have to still watch?