Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would ask that the Premier, in his discussions with the different self-government land claims organization areas where they are not settled yet in terms of land claim and his discussions with leaders who are in self-government negotiations and other communities that wish to enter into negotiations, as an intergovernmental affairs issue, has the Premier and staff worked with the other communities to say that we need to get together, provided that we find some time, money and strategies, and say this is what we need to really sit down and talk to Ottawa about? These are some of the big ticket items that need to be negotiated in the Tlicho Self-Government Agreement. There are some provisions in there that really need to get Ottawa’s attention. There is no clarity in terms of my understanding with the Inuvialuit agreement, the Sahtu agreement, some of the agreements that we’re not quite sure where we sit as a territorial government in terms of legislative authority. Even in the Inuvialuit Final Agreement, the wildlife committees are given the authority to create bylaws under the wildlife, bylaws to hunt for the communities. We have to enforce these laws that are created by the Inuvialuit communities that have these bylaws. Under the bylaws, because self-government agreements are constitutionally protected under section 35, we need to get issues like that...Maybe I’m going a little too far but I think that’s something that we should be looking at even within the aboriginal public governments.

The big question is under the land claim agreements, the self-government agreements, these agreements are constitutionally protected. Do we have a public government that falls under section 35 that’s constitutionally protected? I guess my question to the Premier in terms of some of these big ticket items going forward on some of these agreements that put us in a very difficult position, have there been discussions with the aboriginal leaders, people in the Northwest Territories saying there are some significant changes coming down since 1995, even the ‘70s to ‘95. Aboriginal people have not had this type of opportunity to assert what could be their rights.

Never. Only 1960, the first time that people had a right to vote in the Confederation of Canada.

Mr. Chairman, what I’m trying to say is because there’s going to be some significant changes in the Northwest Territories, how it’s going to be carved out, status quo is not going to remain the same. I’m trying to find a way where we could look at these issues that are going to have an impact. There are some really good questions around the table that I’ve heard this afternoon in terms of things we would be looking at. Are these issues here not yet magnified to a level that we want them to be or is it just my view here? Are we dealing with other avenues that will continue on operating as the best we can until we know there’s enough people holding up the sign saying we should be looking at some of these issues here?

Mr. Chair, I would ask the Premier for his comments to my statement. There may be some questions in there.