Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you, Member, for the input. A little bit of history. I believe it was probably fiscal year 1996, 1997; we are trying to remember. At that point, we had three departments that handled the mandates that you now see in existing RWED. Renewable Resources is one. Energy, Mines and Petroleum Resources and then Economic Development and Tourism. At the time that those three were amalgamated into one department, it was largely a cost-saving exercise and I think one that saved the government somewhere in the neighbourhood of a $7million or $8 million one-time savings. I think at that point it was a good decision. We needed to save the money. We didn't have the kind of development pressures then that we do today. We weren't faced then with the same types of challenges in terms of the conservation and protection mandate, as Mr. Braden has indicated, and the need to develop our resources. I think we are much more challenged today to be able to carry out the functions that we have in front of us and the mandates that we have in front of us as one department. I think we have the further challenge of recognizing, from the Prime Minister's commitment, that somewhere two years on the horizon, we will be looking at hopefully devolution and greater control over lands and resources and the responsibility falling to this government and to aboriginal governments. We have to ensure that we will be devolution ready. That is going to be a challenge in the next two years because, certainly, I don't want to give the expectation that you can take those additional mandates and, lock stock and barrel, transfer them into these existing two departments. The framework is here. Now it is important that we develop that and make ourselves devolution ready.

I appreciate the Member's comments. Maybe we were too conservative in writing about the vision of this new department. I think the Member has laid it out very nicely. We should look to be leaders. We should look to be pacesetters in creating this new economy for the North. I think that the kinds of things he is speaking about are the kinds of things that are well articulated in the Northern Strategy, which the Premier is leading on our behalf. I

certainly appreciate the support. I know we have been to the committee with some discussion around the new establishment policies for the two departments. We look forward to their feedback in that regard. Again, I appreciate the Member's support. Thank you.