Thank you, Mr. Speaker. To follow up with my colleague from Hay River's remarks. I'd like to, as well, thank Mr. Allen and Mr. Yakeleya for putting this important motion forward today so we can at least have some discussion on it on the floor of this Assembly. I know the Premier in his remarks and Mr. Braden in his remarks later on, the more you listen to those two gentlemen speak the more you look at this motion and say there are a lot of good reasons in there why we should support this motion. I'd like to thank those two gentlemen for their comments.
The Premier also talked about obstacles. I've spoken about this before in this House, that I do believe the biggest obstacle for development in the Northwest Territories is DIAND itself. I know other Members here have talked about the colonial attitude Ottawa has to the Northwest Territories, and I think that has to change. I don't know whether the Premier wants to deliver that message; by the sounds of it he doesn't want to deliver that message. But things have to change, Mr. Speaker.
Over the past 17 years we haven't gotten anywhere -- anywhere -- with devolution, or resource revenue sharing. We're standing here today talking about the same things we were talking about 17 years ago, 10 years ago, five years ago. It's the same thing, nothing has changed. As well, I've mentioned on the floor of this House the fact that there's been a Liberal government in place in Ottawa the past 11 years. I know they may laugh, but we haven't gotten anywhere with the Liberal Government in Ottawa. Nowhere. You want to talk about waste? The Liberal Government felt so kindly about Mr. Peterson's job at $750,000 a year that they had to give him $1 million a year to work on this file with the Northwest Territories. Every government department has a devolution specialist, devolution advisor. You want to talk about waste? There's the waste. Let's get some coordination here. If we are going to talk about devolution and resource revenue sharing, let's do like we're doing with the pipeline group. Let's try to bring everything together. Let's try to coordinate something. I think this government falls down in its coordination for devolution and resource revenue sharing.
Sure, we're not going to be a province any time soon, but I think unless we start talking about it -- and that's what we're doing today and that's why I'm going to support this motion -- I don't think we get anywhere. I think we stand still and we don't move forward. I think having a motion like this...Again, Mr. Allen and Mr. Yakeleya put it here for us to debate and I think it's a healthy debate and one we should have. I do support it because I think we have to send a message to Ottawa. We've been just spinning our tires the last 17 years and not getting anywhere. I'm glad to see this is here and it has my support. Thank you.