Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no doubt the feds saw us as being over a barrel, because it is in Northerners' best interests to try and come to some agreement on the ownership and sharing of resources and the royalties that flow from them. I have no doubt they use that to their advantage.

I hope that we are able to work with the aboriginal governments to force the issue back to where it should be and that the fiscal responsibility remains as it should and that we pay a little more attention to that. This is in our own better interests, all of us, aboriginal governments and the GNWT, to bring these negotiations along. I think it is imperative we watch that we do not allow the funding allocations to slip too much down this road.

One other comment I would like to make, Mr. Chairman, to echo the comments Mr. Braden was making about the $100,000. I support the issue of funding for the Aboriginal Summit, particularly for the devolution negotiations, but I am less persuaded by Minister Antoine and his arguments for core funding and would prefer to see -- I know that the government wants to deal in a government-to-government-to-government relationship, and I think that is something we have made a strong commitment to do.

I am more easily seeing the Aboriginal Summit as being the government representatives for the First Nations at the table than I do the Dene Nation. That is what causes me some problems. I do not have a problem at all with funding to the Aboriginal Summit, but I have not been persuaded by Minister Antoine's arguments yet on the $100,000. That is just an issue I wanted to make sure was on the record.