Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is very interesting to hear that. I would like to follow up with a question to the Minister asking if the members of the Aboriginal Summit are still going to pursue these talks and if indeed we, as the Northwest Territories government, are also going to participate since a big portion of what we were expecting to negotiate is no longer there. I would like to ask the Minister if he could answer that, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you.

-- Technical Difficulties

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to indicate that I certainly will not be holding my breath when it comes to pursuing this with the federal Ministers. If there is any historical track record, we have not been very successful. I do want to ask the Minister though, it seems we as regular MLAs have only been made aware that the net fiscal benefit was not part of the negotiations. I would like to ask the Minister if he could tell me when he knew or when Cabinet knew that it was not going to be part of the negotiations. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have talked to some members in the Aboriginal Summit and have also heard from Mr. Bob Simpson who has stated in the media that he knew for well over a year. I would like to know where our negotiators and staff were during this time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question today is for the Premier and it is about the procurements practices of this government. I have had a number of constituents raise concerns with me recently. We know that Cabinet decided to waive the Business Incentive Policy on the North Slave correctional facility, phase 2. Their rationale was that they thought it might save us money. Of course, we do not know what the BIP cost is, but never mind that for now. Then also recently, in direct contradiction to that it seems, Mr. Speaker, we decided we were going to get into a negotiated contract situation for water bombing as it relates to forest fire fighting because, Mr. Speaker, we think that a monopoly situation can save us money.

I am wondering why the Cabinet would take such a direct contradiction of position when it comes to procurement in this case.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, some years ago this government took measures to ensure that the work necessary to have the water bombers and land-based fire fighting operations be contracted to northern businesses, for the benefit of northern businesses that would hire northern people and base their operations here in the North. That was an expensive exercise that some of us were involved in, and we believe that after a significant amount of investment the contractor, Buffalo Airways, has done a very good job, in the view of this government, and has invested a significant amount of money, time and energy to carry out that responsibility in the contract arrangement with this government.

The contract requires certain types of work to be done, certain facilities to be available and certain lease arrangements to be made, including with the federal government. These are not arrangements and circumstances that come about easily, and are not readily available to just anyone. In our view, we felt that as an executive there were some compelling reasons why we should consider, in reviewing the good performance of the contractor, in this case to extend. We felt that the benefits ensured evident ongoing benefits to the North of the initial arrangements we made were clear and substantial, and felt it warranted giving the Minister of Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development a mandate to negotiate to see if the current provisions could be negotiated to the satisfaction of both parties. This is currently what we are doing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I am not here to argue the performance of the current contractor, from all accounts that I have heard it has been very good. I think, Mr. Speaker, there have been many concerns and I would like some acknowledgement of that about our procurement practices. We heard in the House Mr. Roland today talking of concerns about an ice road RFP in Inuvik, and that an independent third party we now know will be looking into that contract. We know we are going to have an independent review of the correctional centre fiasco.

Mr. Speaker, there just seems to be an inordinate number of procurement concerns. Would the Premier acknowledge that.