Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I have said we're close, we're moving in the right direction on several occasions. Mr. Speaker, during the past three years of our government's life we've had to go through two federal elections, a number of band elections and so on. But the federal elections in particular tend to throw us off schedule. So we've had two of them and we may in fact have a third one before our government has completed its agenda. So those certainly slow us down.
Mr. Speaker, I think we're closer.
---Laughter
I can tell you right now that the Prime Minister, this Prime Minister, has committed that northerners will be the primary beneficiaries. That is an agreement we never got out of any government before, any federal government, and we finally got that, and I take the Prime Minister at his word on it.
Mr. Speaker, the second thing is that the federal government has recently appointed a new federal negotiator. I take that as a sign that they want to get on with negotiations. Mr. Speaker, as I said, the Secretary to Cabinet is writing to that individual saying we want an agreement-in-principle by the end of this fiscal year and we'll lay out what our plan is to achieve that.
Mr. Speaker, those are steps that we can take to try and move us along. I can't guarantee it as I'm only one out of three parties that have to negotiate this. I'm saying that's the aboriginal, our government and the federal government. But I can tell you, I'm doing everything in my power to be able to do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.