Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was not going to speak to this motion, however, I feel that to say nothing, the possibility to be misunderstood in not supporting this motion is a real possibility. I will speak to it very briefly.

I think that I could categorically say that there is no one who is a Member of this Assembly who does not believe that in order to advance the agenda and the aspirations of Northerners this government needs to find meaningful ways to work together and collaboratively in a spirit of cooperation with Aboriginal governments. But this motion, albeit allows for a forum to discuss this issue here today, we have a convention and agreement amongst ourselves that was put in place that in the dying days of this or any government we would not put in place something that would attempt to tie the hands of or proscribe solutions to the next government. I will not be supporting this, but be sure that I am a huge supporter of working together with our Aboriginal governments and all governments in the Northwest Territories to advance our agenda as Northerners.

I want to allow the leadership of the 17th Assembly

to bring their best efforts to bear on this subject of working together and I feel that supporting the motion for a commission is a very big undertaking. A commission has legalities and costs and all kinds of things. I do not want to pre-empt the efforts of the next government and the leadership of that government from how they will do this. I want the people of the North to be assured that this is high on the agenda and on the priorities of those of us who sit in this Legislature.