Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The land that was requested for access by the Yellowknives Dene falls under the jurisdiction of the NWT government. More specifically, the responsibility falls in the hands of MACA and myself as a Minister. We did provide a cc'd copy to the city when we issued the permission to occupy. Whether we needed to do more than that, we probably could have done more than that. We are not required to report to the city. In this case, we were responding to a request from the Yellowknives. We try to keep a balance between our obligations for municipal governments. We are also trying to respect the rights of the aboriginal peoples. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Mr. Speaker, I would again return to the theme of generating goodwill and trust amongst all of the people involved. Land is especially critical and, as we have known for decades here, it is so essential to what goes on. I really would like the Minister to explain in an area like this why did he take such a bureaucratic, cavalier, black and white, minimalist attitude toward such a significant development? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I thought my approach was very open. We probably meet with the City of Yellowknife and her representatives more than we do with any other municipality in the Northwest Territories. We have regular meetings. We have meetings of the political leaders. We touch base on a regular basis. In this case, there was no requirement for me to inform the city that we provided access. It is Government of the Northwest Territories lands. It is Commissioner's land that we are responsible for. We did provide notice as part of the cc'd document that went to them. There was no requirement to even do that, but we did that. They know what we are doing. There is no permission to lease this land. There is no permission to sell this land to them. It was permission to access the land for some earlier seismic work or geotech. That is all it was. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Mr. Speaker, I guess I suggest that I am disappointed in that approach, and I am going to ask the Minister if he would sit back and take a good long look at the need for building and establishing relationships that really truly are open and that everyone can trust him.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure what he considers open, goodwill and trust and all these words he is using. We have had a good relationship. We have good communications. We have good discussions. We have good debates. I don't know what else we need. We meet on a regular basis, probably even once a month or at least every second month. We don't do that for other municipalities. If the Member is asking me to develop a special relationship, I think we already have one with the City of Yellowknife. I don't know what more he wants. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Premier, Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my capacity as Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, I was at a meeting in Ndilo with the band representatives, the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs and several of his staff. That was my involvement. The Yellowknives pointed out the land they were interested in, they were interested in leasing it and also requested, at that same meeting, access to land in order to do their geotechnical work. That was my involvement, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Premier how he distinguishes between his responsibilities for his constituency, premiership and his ministerial authority at the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, I have to say, with due respect, that the Member is coming very close to implying that I have some other motives in mind here. Mr. Speaker, I am very careful in keeping my roles as an MLA, my role as a Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and my role as Premier separate. Mr. Speaker, I can assure the Members in this House that I do not play favourites as MLA or as a Minister with any mandate that could be seen to be favouring anyone. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, I didn't mean any disrespect to the Premier. I just wanted to know -- and I will leave it at this -- is the Premier comfortable in dealing with these types of issues that involve the Akaitcho land claims process, the Akaitcho people, given the fact that he is the MLA for Weledeh. And if he is, that's okay. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, at some time or another all of us on Cabinet have to deal with issues that affect our constituencies. I tell you, Mr. Speaker, I assure the Members that all of us are very, very thorough in ensuring that we are not playing favourites with our own constituents over others. In fact, if anything, Mr. Speaker, I suppose our constituents might accuse us of setting their concerns to the back burner because we want to be fair to everybody across the Territories.

Mr. Speaker, if there is ever any suggestion that any of us on this side are favouring our constituencies, then I would certainly like to have that discussion with the people who have concerns, because that is a serious, serious concern to us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Mr. Premier, for that response. I would just like to add to this. Perception is a lot, and I would like to ask the Premier why the Member for Deh Cho had the Deh Cho Bridge Corporation and the process of building the Deh Cho Bridge taken away from him. Maybe the Premier could answer that for us. Thank you.

I am going to, Mr. Ramsay, rule that question out of order. That is a totally different line of questioning on a different topic.

---Ruled Out of Order

Item 7, oral questions. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.