Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you indicated, this is a big day today. I would like to thank the Premier, Cabinet Ministers and my colleagues here for all the hard work on this topic and all of the MLAs that came before us that have worked on this topic.

I will be supporting this motion. I support devolution, and devolution will give Northerners control over northern issues.

I believe that devolution will bring jobs from Ottawa to the North, and this Assembly has committed to putting those positions out into the communities and out into the regions. Devolution will bring us 60 or 70 million dollars per year. That money will go into the northern economy. It will add additional services to our constituents, to the people of the Northwest Territories. It will be used to pay down debt. It will be used to give money to the future generations in the Northwest Territories.

I have been able to discuss this issue, this very important issue, with all of my colleagues here, as well as all of the people of Hay River. We’ve been able, over the last few months, to have several meetings there. People have been asking me, is this a good deal, is this the deal we should be signing? I tell them, one of the examples is the Yukon government. As soon as they saw our potential deal, they wanted to go back to the federal government and sign a similar type of deal. So I do believe that it is a strong deal.

Is it the best deal? There are some things that aren’t in this deal. Some of my colleagues have already referred to it. Regulatory review process has been left out. The federal government believes that they need to change it and get that implemented before we can take control. That’s a big question.

Norman Wells revenue is not in here, resources that are northern. The revenue resources from that project are being taken out of the Northwest Territories and kept with the federal government. Is that acceptable? That’s a question that the people will have.

My colleagues have also talked about a 5 percent cap on the amount of revenue sharing we can

have. Some people are concerned with that. Some people feel that the 5 percent actually limits us from raping our environment and controlling how much development we do. We don’t want to take too much revenue because we’d just end up giving it back to the federal government. So that controls some of the development that we want to do. We want to do responsible development.

One of the other issues is the contaminated waste sites and what the liability issues for the future will be for this territory. That’s a big question mark.

The other issue that’s come up is, obviously, there are two Aboriginal groups that have not signed on. That is a shame. We need to keep working on that. Even more recently, as of even today, we’re receiving concerns from the NWT, their concerns about the division of the Aboriginal governments’ money and how it’s going to be divided up. They are very concerned with this. The government is wanting to leave it in the Aboriginal groups’ hands, and I understand that concept, but the NWT Metis are very concerned and not sure if they’re going to continue to be in the process. I’m very concerned, obviously, about that.

With these concerns, I’ve obviously indicated that I will support it, and I think the benefits and the future of the Northwest Territories is very strong. So I think devolution will give the NWT a bright, shining future.

Mr. Speaker, I will be supporting this motion. Thank you very much.