Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Mr. Bell.

Mr. Speaker, I say again, we could have negotiated in this project 50 percent employment guarantees for women, but we know that can never be met if we don't have women eligible who have got the training in these trades areas. We could set 50 percent targets, 100 percent targets for northern businesses. It would be mute, Mr. Speaker, if we don't work with our businesses to make sure that they have the capacity to fulfill some of the commitments. So, Mr. Speaker, I say again, and the Member pointed out in his statement or opening question, section two speaks to employment. There are a number of provisions to make sure we break down some of the barriers for women and to make sure that we have a safe worksite and workplace, a harassment-free workplace for women. But more important than that, as a government we need to make sure that we've got more women accessing our training so that they have a meaningful shot at the opportunities that we are creating. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bell. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Great Slave, Mr. Braden.

Mr. Speaker, further questions for the Premier. Again, it regards our place in the Canadian mosaic, Mr. Speaker. Late last year the Premiers of the Yukon, Nunavut and the Northwest Territories met in Iqaluit, as they do annually, I believe. Among the items of business that they arrived at was to take yet another shot at a northern vision. According to the press release of the day, they directed their officials to develop a strategic action plan to frame a dialogue with Canada on a northern vision. This was to cover things such as Canadian Arctic sovereignty, circumpolar relations, and climate change. Mr. Speaker, how are our officials doing on developing this iteration of the strategic action plan for the North?

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That was in, I believe, late November or December that we met in Iqaluit. The direction was given to our staff. They are working on it. We are meeting again as northern Premiers within the next two or three months. I don't have the exact date. I'd expect to have a report back from officials at that time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some cynicism about this. We engaged in quite a lengthy and extensive exercise in some cooperation with the previous federal government that just got quietly dropped there. We don't seem to make a lot of progress on this. We keep talking about it, but something about the way we're approaching this just isn't getting results. Mr. Speaker, what is different about this approach to a pan-northern Canadian vision that hasn't already been tried?

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, we need to have a vision of where we're going, we need to have plans. We can fill documents up with nice words and anecdotes and malapropisms, all kinds of things that can be said, but it doesn't mean anything unless we can get down to some specific action. Mr. Speaker, my intention, and what we talk about with the other Premiers that we talk about an action plan, we're not talking about more nice, fluffy documents. The last one wasn't a complete loss, Mr. Speaker, with the previous government. They ended up with a $40 million payment and that resulted in our community capacity fund, which I think was greatly appreciated by communities and resulted in some good specific projects. Not quite the intention we wanted, but it did get beyond those nice words. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

You know I'm not going to discount at all every one of those $40 million and the value that they will have to us but, you know, it's these little, kind of buy-offs, these little, sort of, well, here, you know, here's some money, go away, go down to the candy store for a little while and come back when you're hungry again. This seems to be the pattern that we've set up with Canada and I don't like it. This is why I want to know, with this northern vision, what efforts are going to be made to get a broader buy-in from across the North, from all sectors of the North, and not just have this as a circle of government guys getting together to put together what they think is going to work. How are the rest of us going to get involved? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I get the same frustration. I would really feel terrible if we were the only ones being treated that way, but I can tell you that is the pattern right across the country with every jurisdiction. I think all of us, as Premiers, are frustrated with getting these little short-term, one-time buy-offs and

never getting a longer-term commitment, whether it's resource revenue sharing or a better deal on health funding or post-secondary or whatever it may be that is an agreement that is long term. We all wish we could achieve that but, in the end, sometimes we have to take it step by step and we will get there eventually, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in terms of where do we all get involved. I've committed this morning to say that I want to work with the Members; I think all 19 of us have to do that. I'd like to work with the chairs of the committees and say, okay look, how do we move this ahead now. We're at a critical point. We still have negotiations going on, but at the same time, we want to turn up the heat a bit more, turn up the pressure a bit more and I'm ready to work with everyone on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Oral questions. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. First of all, we have a budget that has grown considerably. I think, as the Minister of Finance said, it's a $1.2 billion budget now. That's grown considerably if you look back three years. So we haven't been completely without new revenues over the last few years. That doesn't include some of the one-time money that we've achieved. Most of what we will pay for will come through that $1.2 billion budget. But what we need, if we're going to build a sustainable economy in the long run and build infrastructure and have people who are prepared to take on jobs that at a greater rate than they do right, we're going to need a fair share of that other money, that resource revenues that come from our land. We also have to think ahead because we have non-renewable resources and what do we do once those are all mined out? So we need to look at things like a trust fund, a heritage fund for the future. That's where we need that money.

Mr. Speaker, we have been paying -- I think in a 2001 report that we did on non-renewable resource development -- we have been footing the bill for about $68 million minimum per year additional cost because of mining development. That's a reality that we've had to pay for that out of our money. We wish we could have paid for that out of resource revenue sharing. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Premier for his response but we've been paying the price for far too long. We've been paying the price on negotiations for devolution, negotiations on resource revenue sharing for years and years, not to mention the millions of dollars -- the Premier mentioned $68 million -- in mining development that the Territories spent. We've also been spending money in preparation for the pipeline. Are we going to be able to recoup any of this money? I don't think so, absolutely not. If we don't have an agreement with Ottawa, we have no ability to get this money back. Mr. Speaker, I'd like to ask the Premier, when is he going to address the fact that 75 percent of the population in this territory is left without any ability to pay for the impact of this mega project in our backyard? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Speaker, let me say again that if you go back to the beginning of our government and look at what the budget was at that time, what it is now, we have a considerable increase in our budget; it's gone up to $1.2 billion. That is what's paying for a lot of our programs. We have $50 million of housing money, not to build 500-plus houses, that's new money that we've achieved. We have had considerable income. We've had expenses because of development; we will have even more. However, for those who are right along the pipeline, they will benefit from the $500 million socio-economic impact fund. The rest of us will benefit from the increased revenue we get from the federal government through our formula. We'll also benefit in the fact that more people are working, more people are paying taxes and more people are making purchases and so on. We're not destitute here. But the issue isn't that we're broke; the issue is that we're not being treated fairly in terms of resource revenues. We'll manage with what we have, but we should get a share of that money that is being made out of the mines, the oil and gas, and that should be our nest egg for that rainy day when we no longer have as much mining going on. That's the argument. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. The time for oral questions has expired, but I will allow the Member his final supplementary. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would suggest that the Premier and his Cabinet are perhaps some of the biggest riverboat gamblers we have out there. They're gambling our future on what? On hopes and promises

and dreams? We don't have any guarantee. That, Mr. Speaker, is the bottom line, and I think the Premier needs to get some guarantees on socio-economic impact funds for the rest of the communities that aren't included in that $500 million...