Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this Legislative Assembly gives us an opportunity as MLAs to speak of different issues in our constituencies. Mr. Speaker, there was a conference last week in Fort Simpson that was hosted by the Fort Simpson Tribal Council, which included the Metis Local and the Village of Fort Simpson. This was the Deh Cho Resource Development Conference.

The theme was assessing opportunities and maximizing benefits. This built in many concerns on current and potential development in the Deh Cho in the areas of oil and gas exploration, pipeline development, mining, forestry and our traditional economy with a focus on sustainable development.

Over the past few years, the communities in my constituency of Nahendeh, which is part of the Deh Cho region, have experienced a slow down. It is important to increase capacity so that everyone in the region and community can get ready and participate.

There is growing consensus that the Northwest Territories Delta gas reserves will be developed before the Alaska gas reserves and the people in the Deh Cho are sitting on 40 percent of the right of way. They want to concentrate on maximizing the benefits from any potential resource development such as pipelines.

They want to do this by assessing communities to identify any short-term or long-term training opportunities and initiatives. They want to ensure that the social and environmental dimensions of development are incorporated in all discussions prior to any resource development. There is a high level of interest by the people in the communities. They want to be involved and they want to have support for any development that is going on for the aboriginal people as well as the businesspeople in the communities.

All in all, it was a very successful conference. I think this is the first of its kind in the Deh Cho and Fort Simpson. I think there is room for a lot of other conferences in the future. It is the beginning for the people in the Deh Cho to see what they have to do to maximize the benefits from resource development. Thank you.