Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I throw my full support behind this motion and second it, due to the injustice that I see that's going on by the federal government and the struggles that we have as a territorial government in terms of providing adequate -- like any other Canadians -- basic, simple programming services. We could pay for it. We could do it. There are lots of people who have opinions that support that this government can sustain itself with the amount of dollars that have been coming out of the Northwest Territories over the years and the kinds of infrastructures that we have in the Northwest Territories.

Look in our small communities; they're just like Third World communities. We're struggling and people are saying to us in the small communities we have the Mackenzie Valley pipeline happening and the Norman Wells expansion oilfield over the last couple of years that it was put through, why are we struggling with all of these resources in our own territory? The federal government is strong-arming us and it's about time that we sit with them as equal partners and take them up on their word in terms of giving us a fair deal in terms of the resources. Otherwise it's going to be a struggle for us again.

I think in the whole scheme of things that our Premier and our government and the people who are working for us on our behalf need to go down with a strong mandate to Ottawa and say we would like to work out a deal with you to show that we're part of the confederacy within Canada here and that today we could stand up on our own two feet. Mr. Speaker, I think the bottom line is that we could pay our own way now. There are means and mechanisms that we could do it. I think the federal government now needs to really consider looking at taking the Northwest Territories as a serious partner in terms of helping all Canadians. Pay us what we need. Pay us what is owed to us.

With that said, in that sense, I'm not going to use too much of my time. I just want to thank the Members for their time and to say again I fully support this motion. Mahsi.