Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I want to follow up with the comments I made yesterday in terms of the mortgaging of the Northwest Territories and the interest of oil companies and other resource development, such as mining and potential hydro happening in the Northwest Territories. The Northwest Territories is being looked upon as a wealth of resources. Some are referring to us as the last frontier. Our road now to becoming self-sufficient, independent and working with the federal government in terms of negotiating a resource revenue sharing deal and the devolution of programs, it's been 17 years that I've heard the negotiations for devolution have been ongoing. I think with all that's happening in the Northwest Territories, that might be an advantage for us to have these devolution programs and services come into the Northwest Territories.

I'm saying this, Madam Chair, in terms of our mortgaging, because Mr. Roland said yesterday it's like a family mortgaging a house. If you're going to mortgage a house for the long term, there are certain commitments and there are some uncertainties there. You never know what's going to happen in two years or five years or 10 years. You go with the good intentions of mortgaging a house and you hope you're going to do well. It's a good house; the Northwest Territories has a lot of wealth here. People are after our resources and, as owners of our house here, I'm happy to see that he said we have to put our house in order. We have to build relationships with other organizations.

Like Mr. Menicoche, I was up very early this morning and on my second pot of coffee when I was taking notes of the interest of Thomas Berger and CBC's staff. They were talking about the pipeline and the number of issues that we are facing as a government in terms of dealing with the pipeline and the uncertainty of it for sure coming down. There are no guarantees. The United States government is fiercely pushing that agenda to go through Alaska. I heard that we might be taking a big risk if we don't continue supporting this in terms of waiting another 10 or 15 years. Berger said we should take our time, but I agree with the Minister in terms of putting our house in order to make sure that what is ours stays ours and that we can be self-sufficient.

I like the budget that he brought down. For me it's like Christmastime in February. The Minister is Santa Claus and we're all sitting around asking what are we going to get. At Christmastime, sometimes we're disappointed because we didn't get what we want from the man from the North Pole. He's from Inuvik, so I guess he's up that way.

---Laughter

I was thinking about that and I think that we get a good deal with the resource revenue sharing from the federal government that in time we wouldn't be asking for too many things in terms of governance for our communities. The trust that we have to have in terms of asking the bank to mortgage our place here, they're going to want some securities and that's where the whole complexity of putting this deal together and what we have to deal with in the Northwest Territories.

I think I want to just end on that, Madam Chair. As MLAs in our communities, we were asked to come to Yellowknife and sit in the Legislative Assembly. There are lots of concerns and needs out in our communities that people are asking us to get for them and work on. There is lots of money they see that maybe could be spent elsewhere. There are opportunities. The Mackenzie gas pipeline is a real big opportunity for our people. There are lots of opportunities out there; however, you have to balance them with the environmental and social impacts. Is this really going to be good for us? Economically, I heard that it's viable, prime for economics in industry. However, does that outweigh the needs of the communities, our government, the aboriginal governments and the other interest groups? I'm not too sure. I speak for myself as an MLA, to come and see what we can do for our communities. I think there are ways we could help the communities, listen to the communities, start giving the ownership and the authority back to the communities. Sometimes as government we need to step out of the way, and that's kind of hard sometimes. There are lots of resources there and sometimes we don't get what we want. We see the needs really increase in the communities and they look to us as helping them live a better life. I know some of them tell us we're not their government. You're not our government. Yet we still work with them.

I think this government is very unique because it's the people's government. Sometimes we have to think about that. It's the people's government. You've got a tough job over there. As MLAs we bring concerns to you that hopefully you will satisfy our requests. There are ways to work around it. The pipeline is one; the hydro is another that people are concerned about, but they're also looking at the greenhouse effect. The Kyoto agreement is going to be discussed in a couple of weeks in Ottawa. I heard this one on the radio in Fort Good Hope about the social impacts of the pipeline.

A lot of these issues are going to be discussed on the 15th. I think the Minister's budget address, that I heard yesterday, is positive. I'm happy to see the surplus. I've always said that you have my support to get whatever you can out of Ottawa to make sure it stays here. That, Madam Chair, is what I'd like to comment on. Thank you.