Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the Government of the Northwest Territories, we have been communicating with our federal counterparts, mainly the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, who have been talking about putting positions up in the North.

There is the possibility of other departments, such as Fisheries and Oceans and Environment Canada, who may also be putting more resources into the North. The decision has not been made there yet. In the last federal budget announcement, it does not look like there was anything in there to indicate that there are going to be more resources going into the North.

In our discussions through our officials, we express our position and our concern that if you do put positions in the North, that you have to be open to discuss not only locating these positions in one central area but look at distributing some of these positions to where it is most applicable. For example, if there is oil and gas activity, then we should be focusing on putting the positions that are going to be dealing with oil and gas into the most applicable areas.

This is the kind of discussion we have been having, and there is nothing concrete yet. There is a desire to put positions up here but we do not know where they are going to go. I think the feds would like to put them in one local central location, but I think we have to do some work here to try to encourage them to consider putting these positions in the regions and into communities other than Yellowknife. Thank you.