Thank you Mr. Chairman. In reviewing the report and the government’s rejection of the 28 recommendations, I think it is like anything else; it is just like reading a book and you take out 28 pages and you say continue to read the book and you’ll get the whole story, but I don’t think you can get the full story with these 28 recommendations being rejected by governments. I think, if anything, it basically eliminates the whole process of due process, allowing people the opportunity to speak their minds, raise their issues, and more importantly, ensure that the public would have an opportunity to make sure that the government, who will be ultimately responsible for the final outcome of this project, will make sure that those responsibilities are carried out and the obligations that we have by way of regulatory responsibility, and more importantly, obligations from governments.

I think the area that basically alarms me the most is the area that we have by way of land claims obligations. Mr. Chair, I think the thing that very much alarms me is the land use planning processes that are underway are being developed and ensuring that those plans under the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act clearly stipulates that the land use plans will be the fundamental basis for management and development in the area of consolidating information and to allow compliance of those plans.

But yet, Mr. Speaker, one thing that we see in the agreements is that there is an area that has been extracted from those arrangements. More importantly, when we talk about sections of the agreements, especially in Section 11, which talks about those special management requirements and arrangements under land claims agreements, such as special management areas in the Mackenzie Delta, protected areas in the Sahtu, land use plans for the Sahtu, Gwich’in Land Use Plan and also the Dehcho Land Use Plan, in regards to the approval of those plans as the basis of any future developments in the North and taking them into consideration of how those developments are going to happen.

The area that alarms me is the whole area of harvesters' compensation agreements under Section 12, 12(2) to 12(3), 12(4), which very much is on the minds of most harvesters in the Northwest Territories. What will that do to their livelihood? What are we going to do when we continue to see the downgrade of the caribou? Where are we in regards to issues such as the protection of the

Woodland caribou under Section 10(6), the future development in regards to Woodland caribou? What we are seeing in northern Alberta and the Northwest Territories in regards to our barren-land caribou should be sending alarm bells to the rest of the world, but yet that is one of the items that was taken out of the response to the report under 10(6). Again, especially when the Government of the Northwest Territories is saying it is responsible for wildlife management and wildlife responsibilities, to take that out of a document in regards to a recommendation in regards to the report clearly illustrates the reluctance to ensure the protection of endangered species in the Northwest Territories, and more importantly, the protection and well-being of the people in the Northwest Territories.

Again, falling back to the suggestion and recommendations of wildlife harvesters agreements, or harvesters compensation agreements, and under Section 12, it clearly illustrates the importance of harvesters compensation agreements and the effect that pipeline will have on the harvesting areas of aboriginal people up and down the valley and exactly what is going to be in place to ensure that these harvesters will be compensated for the effects of that pipeline, but more importantly, the mitigating effects that will come with it.

Again, I think it is important to realize that through the 28 recommended changes that this Government of the Northwest Territories, on one hand, is asking for devolution and saying give us the responsibility so we can show you exactly how we are going to manage the repairs of the federal government, and again under Section 15, 15(11), it talks about revenue sharing agreements and the recommendation of the report basically says that the Government of Canada sets aside 50 percent of the non-renewable resource revenues received from the Mackenzie Gas Project and hold it in trust for the Government of the Northwest Territories and aboriginal authorities until such time as resource revenue agreements have been concluded among the three parties. It talks about the three parties, but yet right now we are only talking a party of two. The same thing applies to Section 15(12), in regards to translation plans.