Mr. Speaker, why is it so important that we proceed at this time? Well, I think there’s a long history of talking about development and grabbing the authority from Ottawa and bring it to the North, and sharing the powers amongst northern governments has been discussed for decades and we’ve come to a place now where, in fact, as I was speaking earlier today, this is not the first occasion that the Government of the Northwest Territories faced a situation of making a decision if we go forward or not. In fact, the 15th Assembly was
in a very similar place and had a number of the groups sign on with the Government of the Northwest Territories and sent that in. If that was accepted at the time, we would actually be negotiating a final agreement at this time. That wasn’t done. In fact, I believe it allowed us more
time to improve on the package that was signed off back then by the 15th Assembly.
We have come to a place, a time in the history of the Northwest Territories, when we talk about the future and what that may mean. If we just look at the examples that have happened, for example the JRP process, when you look at decisions that have been made around the Mackenzie potential, Mackenzie Gas Pipeline, when you look at the conditions that are put in place, right now those decisions are being made by others outside of our Territory. We talk about having that control. This provides that kind of control. Even during our Creating Our Future Together roundtables, the youth of the Northwest Territories were saying we need to get that authority and we need to bring it home. Thank you.