Thank you, Mr. Chair. Welcome, Minister and staff. I’d like to offer my comments to the Finance department.

Mr. Chair, the comments I want to offer have to do with the points here that look at the resource revenue to Aboriginal governments. Just for clarification, maybe when the Minister responds, are these the Aboriginal governments that have signed on to devolution? I know some haven’t yet come to the point of signing on to devolution. I know the money here, 25 percent is targeted to the Aboriginal governments. So, just more of a clarification.

The $2 million that is established to remediate the contaminated sites, is there a general number the department has as to the amount of contaminated sites and the dollar figure on the remediation of all those sites? Two million dollars is a small amount. Are we receiving support from the federal government on the remediation of the contaminated sites that we as a government have taken on as part of the transfer of lands and resources to the Northwest Territories?

The forced growth of $497,000, the collective bargaining increase, will this be, in the future, an issue for us to pay close attention to when we start collective bargaining with the various unions in the Northwest Territories? Is it something that we can look at?

The government’s support for the NWT Power Corporation to mitigate the impact of power rates, I want to say that the constituents in the Sahtu are happy that they had some relief there due to the natural causes of low water, the hydro that the constituents didn’t have to absorb that additional cost to their pockets as Norman Wells was also hit with switching over to natural gas as another source of energy.

I want to talk about a couple more points before I’m done with my general comments. Investment and implementation of the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link, it’s a good investment and I see that it’s going to be a strong, long-term and stable investment for the government and the people who are going to use it and I congratulate the department and industry for putting it together. We’re starting to see some of the benefits. This morning I saw a little bit of a hiccup with Ledcor in regards to the criteria, qualification and workers in the Tulita area not working. They’re bringing in workers from outside of the community to work in our area. Working with the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment for the type of proper training, Ledcor, at no fault of their own because they were doing what they had to do, but somewhere there was a glitch and we didn’t get the proper training to hire people. We are now working on it. We are dealing with it. I just wanted to let the Minister know that there are some people in Tulita, and maybe other areas should be aware that they need this type of proper training to get work with the Mackenzie Valley Fibre Optic Link. I just wanted to let the Minister know I’m working on this issue already so we can have this resolved so we have our own people working on the line, other than bringing people from outside into Tulita taking jobs away from our people. That’s what’s happening right now.

I do want to say that I look forward to seeing the stronger implementation of the Decentralization Strategy of this government. Decentralization is one of the key selling points of devolution and moving some of the work, positions, programs and services into our regions and communities. We should continue to support decentralization. There are a number of challenges that the government has to consider. There are always ways to look at how we can overlook some of these barriers.

In closing, I look forward to working with the government on the renewal of the Financial Administration Act. It’s a big document and I look forward to doing some work on that. If there is any way the Minister can provide me, Mr. Chair, with

information on the liquor revenue in my region, I would like a breakdown of sales in my region for the year, the type of money we’re spending, the type of money we’re generating in the Sahtu on the liquor warehouse. I would appreciate that.

I want to say to the Minister and staff, I look forward to reviewing this budget and concluding it this afternoon. Thank you.