Mr. Chairman, on the devolution side, that is the transfer of responsibility, there are five outstanding issues. I don't think those issues can be or will be resolved at the negotiating table. I am prepared to sit down with Minister Andy Scott and whoever he needs, to come to political agreements on those outstanding items if necessary. As soon as I get a meeting, I want to talk about those.
On the resource revenue sharing side, there has been less of a willingness to come to the table and talk seriously about resource revenue sharing. What we are asking for is an agreement that is very similar to what the provinces enjoy, where we get a percentage of revenues ongoing, but the federal government still seems to be stuck on wanting to offer us a flat amount of money, just a fixed amount of money regardless how much revenues go up or down. That is not acceptable to us. So we have to move them off that.
There are other issues as well on the quantum. This is not, in our view, a token amount of money. This is a fair share of revenues that come off our territory that we are asking for. I don't think what we are asking for is outrageous, but we want a share of it and we want it done on a percentage basis, not some flat amount that has no relationship to development.
The other issue we have to deal with is the sharing of resource revenues with aboriginal governments. Some seem to be more eager to get into debate with us about how to divide it up before we know what we've got. I am of the view that we work together as northern governments to get as much as we can, as good a deal as we can and then worry about dividing it second. If we get into big disagreements about how to divide it up, we may end up with nothing and have nothing to divide up.
In conclusion, I know it's the end of May. I know we are running out of time. I am getting more and more concerned we may not achieve this. I think it's very unfortunate if we end up putting this off until fall. Who knows what the agenda will be in the fall in Ottawa. I don't like that scenario and I am not ready to concede that it's not going to be done this spring. Thank you.