Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am very glad that this motion has come forward and I'd like to thank the mover and the seconder for bringing it to the floor.
I've spoken to the issue of new resource revenues, yesterday, when I was speaking to the devolution motion and the debate that we had there. This motion particularly identifies four areas where these resource revenues should go. Certainly, one-quarter is going to aboriginal governments and I find no fault with that whatsoever.
The other three areas I think need to be debated. I don't necessarily agree with these four priorities as they are laid out. But I think what this motion asks for, and what needs to be emphasized in this motion, is we need to have a debate not only within the House and amongst Members but it needs to go to the public. I spoke to that yesterday. It needs to go to the public so we can get their ideas.
I‘m sure there are ideas out there which we have not heard. We're not all that brilliant, all of us. We need to hear from the public what ideas they have, consider those and then make an educated decision. We didn't involve the public, to my view, as much as we should have when we were talking about the Devolution Agreement, and this is an opportunity to go back to the public and say we maybe made a mistake the first time around. Here's an opportunity for you to tell us what we should do with our revenues.
These revenues belong to the people. They don't belong to the House. They don't belong to individual Members. They don't belong to Cabinet. They belong to the people. It's coming from the resources of the people and I think we need to hear from them. Thank you.