Thank you, Mr. Chair. Assuming our budget is passed, I don't intend to slow down at all on this. We are going to continue with our negotiations right to the last day. I hope the next government continues on and keeps the pressure up.

Mr. Chair, in the last months, we have had a number of meetings with the aboriginal leaders. Four groups are onside with us. That is the Gwich'in, the Inuvialuit, the Sahtu and the Metis Nation. The Tlicho is considering the proposal. Dehcho has been briefed, as well, and they are reconsidering. We have not yet had opportunity to brief the Akaitcho. Mr. Chair, we are not waiting for unanimous support. We have majority support, and we intend to continue to move ahead and hopefully in partnership with the aboriginal leaders.

Mr. Chair, negotiations between us and the federal government on the six issues will continue. I look forward to a meeting hopefully sometime early in April with the federal government and the aboriginal leaders from the Territories on this issue. We will proceed from there. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Next I have Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I have a question on the devolution resource revenue issue and the complexity of the whole negotiations and the various unlimited amount of issues that are still outstanding and probably will remain outstanding for the next 10 years if we don't change the approach on negotiations. I just want to ask the Premier about the approach that we are taking. We want the resource revenue sharing deal and the devolution deal all wrapped up in one sweet package and delivered here in the North. If it is going to take so long and it looks pretty bleak that we are going to have a deal here in any near future, looking at it like that, why don't we change the tactics on negotiation and try and...Is it possible that we could have a diamond resource revenue deal separate from an exploration resource revenue deal, separate from an oil resource revenue deal, gas resource revenue deal and just sort of piece it along as we go? At least we are getting something as we are going instead of, okay, we have half of it settled but we still have half of it outstanding so we really are not getting anything anyway. So it really doesn't make much sense to me to try and get some back revenue out of Norman Wells oil and gas for the last 60 years if that is one of the main issues that is still outstanding. Can we just piecemeal it? At the end of 10 years, we will have a resource revenue devolution package there to present. It is something that maybe has been put together over 10 years piece by piece. Is that approach possible or been thought about? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chair, that approach is possible. The challenge we have, though, is not so much an issue of where the resources are coming from but how do we divide them up in the Territories between the GNWT and the aboriginal governments and also just the principle from the federal government of changing our authority from a territory to more like a province. Even if we broke it up by resource sector, you would still end up with the same challenges. If we did diamonds, aboriginal leaders would still want to have a share of the revenues from those diamonds. The federal government would want to know under what authority does it give us that money. What would our responsibility under devolution be? We would take one very complex process and break it into four or five equally complex parallel ones. It might, in fact, make things even more complicated.

Having said that, Mr. Chair, I am as frustrated as anybody is with this whole thing. I wish we could make more progress more quickly. We have made a commitment to work with aboriginal leaders, but if there is an alternative, I would be happy to discuss it further with Members. If there are things we should be doing, whether it is this one that Mr. Villeneuve is suggesting or taking out Toronto ads or whatever it may be, I am ready to look at whatever. My own personal feeling is that we keep it as one package. We have made some progress in the last few months. We have pushed that as far as we can before we push it aside and start over again on another tact. I am afraid that might just delay us even further. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I know there has been a lot of work put into the whole process already. I am not really one to say that we should just push it aside and change our direction, but I am saying I think in a lot of those sections of resource revenue, the packages are already completed or they should be completed by now. Why can't we settle on those parts of the package so that we have some revenue coming in, put it aside, put the revenue aside until we can iron out the issues of how we are going to divvy it up? But at least we are getting that revenue today or tomorrow instead of, okay, well, that is settled, let's wait until we have it all settled. We might not even get it all settled for another 10, 15 years, then we're not really getting anything. My rationale is let's start chipping at the block, or at the resource revenue deal as we go along and as we start settling sections of the package, then we start taking bigger chunks out. That's the approach that I'm looking at. What about something like that? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll certainly consider the Member's suggestion; however, for the next short while I'd like to stay the course of what we have. We've got the majority of the aboriginal leaders onside with us. We're making some headway with the federal negotiator on those six outstanding issues I mentioned. We are working toward an agreement-in-principle. We are trying to negotiate with the federal government that holds all the cards and they're reluctant to give up anything and they're negotiating hard. I think we need to give the current process more time and if we're not able to achieve an AIP, for example, then this should be very much an issue that the next government takes on and we recommend in the transition document. To start switching now, I think we'd run into a time crunch. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you. I can understand Mr. Handley's plight, I guess, that you don't want to switch gears while you're right in the middle of the race. I'm just saying if there are only six outstanding issues, why don't we put those issues aside and let's look at the issues that they've settled on and get an interim AIP signed, an AIP that's going to be open to these other outstanding issues, obviously, and move forward from there. Why can't we sign, get something with what we agree on today instead of waiting for these outstanding issues which are going to take time, and time is something people just wait to hear about these days with resource revenue sharing devolution. It's time that we just don't have. Is that a possibility? Instead of just changing the whole way we're going about things, just sort of say, okay, we'll chip away, we'll take this as is right now and we'll work for the rest later. We'll just keep working on the rest of it, but we'll start drawing our share here right today. What's wrong with that approach?

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We'll certainly consider it, but the problem is that if we now switch and say okay let's look at diamonds, then we may get new challenges from the Akaitcho, for example, who have not agreed even to discussing devolution with us saying no we don't want you to talk about sharing resource revenues on diamonds because that's in our traditional area, and it adds a whole new complexity to something in the few months we have left in our government. Then that's where most of our resource revenues are coming from right now.

The rest is coming from Norman Wells oil and gas. In the Norman Wells case, the federal government doesn't even want to acknowledge that we should have a share of that, so it's a whole different issue there. Mr. Chairman, I'll take it under advisement, we'll look at it, we'll talk about it, but it would...I'm just afraid it would complicate the issue and give the federal government reasons to take their focus off this and start to throw other problems as being reasons for delaying. I'm reluctant during the life of our government to throw other alternatives out there for them, but try to keep them focused on what we're doing here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Villeneuve, thank you. We're on page 2-25. Mr. McLeod.

(inaudible)...2-27.

Thank you. We're on page 2-25, activity summary, executive offices, operation expenditure summary, $6.639 million.

Page 2-27, executive offices, activity summary, Executive offices, grants and contributions, grants, $150,000. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as many of you know, I've been beating on this resource revenue sharing drum for a while and I agree with the Premier to try and stay the course and not break things up, because other than dragging out over 40 years, 30 years, to do that now would, I think, drag it out even more and play right into Ottawa's hand because they have an excuse to delay it longer. I just wanted to make that point.

The $500,000 that I see here, to devolution negotiation, that's money that's given to...It's a contribution to the aboriginal governments to take part in the negotiation process and that negotiation process is it being part of a combined negotiation process with Ottawa, or is it their own negotiation process with Ottawa? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The negotiations are essentially trilateral negotiations in that we're all at the same table, but they would be negotiating on a common set of principles that we've agreed to with them, but also taking into consideration each of their own interests. Now they have agreed on a number of fronts to work together, so it's not as if each aboriginal regional government is off doing its independent thing at all. So to answer the question, it is at the same table and the same set of negotiations and based on the same set of principles.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you to the Premier for that because I was quite concerned, I mean, I want us all to be on the same page, on the same team here. The money, this $500,000 just goes to the aboriginal groups. I'm assuming it's all aboriginal groups that want to take part in the negotiation process, just not those that are with claim settlements. This $500,000 is on top of what it's costing this government for our own negotiators. I'd be curious as to a figure what it's costing us for our own negotiators to be down there and I will leave it at that, Mr. Chair.