Madam Chair, it's true that there have been good words said about various strategies over the years like devolution has been around for years and never borne any fruit. The biggest difference on this one, in my view, is the engagement of the Prime Minister himself. When we talked about the strategy, he brought in the key Ministers. We talked about it and he directed his officials to get to work. This was in the afternoon and he directed that they be meeting the next day on it, starting to work out some of the detail.

The presentation that we made to the federal government included a set of principles of what we thought should be there. There should be a government-to-government process that should be comprehensive, should be inclusive. Some of the main things that were included in the strategy include things like governance, land claims, implementation, for example, economic development. We're close to having a mechanism for delivering the $90 million economic development fund that was announced months ago.

Regarding environmental issues, there is $3.5 billion that has been announced for waste site cleanup. About 60 percent of them Minister Goodale tells us are going to go to the North. We need to make that into an action plan. Let's get the plan together and get on with that now. It's been sitting there. We don't need to announce it again, we just need to get on with doing a cleanup.

Regarding infrastructure, housing, northern science and research, there's a whole list of things that are included in there. The one recommendation that we made and I spoke to in the meeting was that general oversight and direction for this project should rest with the Prime Minister and the three northern Premiers so that right from the top, it's being led by the Prime Minister and Premiers themselves; that there be a steering committee made up of Ministers who are responsible for the various areas and, of course, the work areas.

The Prime Minister also agreed that we have to work toward quick, short-term deliverables, medium-life deliverables and longer-term. I think the difference between what I want to work toward here is one that is going to show us some deliverables within months. It's not all going to be a long-term strategic planning and visioning exercise, but one that's aimed at getting some things moving right way. I can't be 100 percent sure that we won't get frustrated again and just find ourselves bogged down in another big strategy.

The other point I should mention is that when we talked about this, I also reinforced the message that we don't want to get our initiatives that are currently underway tied up into some strategy where it's to the point where we're saying we go to talk about resource revenue sharing and say leave that because we are dealing with a strategy right now. I don't want to go that route either. So the only thing I could give, Madam Chair, at this time is my commitment that I am going to work along with the other Premiers as hard as we can to make sure this thing does get legs this time. Thank you.