Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think that having myself or having the Government of the Northwest Territories chair the Aboriginal Affairs Working Group was quite a recognition of the important work that we do here in the Northwest Territories, and also how far ahead the Northwest Territories is in regards to a lot of Aboriginal issues including Aboriginal rights, land claims, and so on.
As the chair of the Aboriginal Affairs Working Group, which involves the aboriginal affairs Ministers of all the provinces and territories, of which at least eight of them are Premiers, and the leaders of the five national Aboriginal organizations, we deal with very difficult issues. Initially, we have dealt with missing and murdered Aboriginal women and girls. Also, we have had a review of best practices of Aboriginal children and care. These are issues that are assigned by the Premiers of Canada to the different working groups.
I held the chair. This will be my second year. We accomplished a lot the first year. I chaired the First Round Table of Missing and Murdered Aboriginal Women and Girls, and we completed a very major review of Aboriginal children and care. We also worked on a number of other initiatives such as disaster mitigation and so on for a very small jurisdiction. It was quite a test for us to be able to accomplish what we did because it required a lot of resources.
More recently with the new Government of Canada, Minister Bennett came to the Northwest Territories very early on into the new government's mandate. She came in January 8thand one of her primary reasons was to meet with regards to the Aboriginal Affairs Working Group. She is seeking support for a national inquiry. We are prepared to do that. As the chair of the Aboriginal Affairs Working Group, I was given the task by Canada's premiers to develop new terms of reference to set up a new body to replace the Aboriginal Affairs Working Group involving the Government of Canada and the federal Minister of Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada to service the co-chair, along with myself. We'll be meeting next week to hopefully improve the terms of reference. It will have a new name. It will be our national Federal-Provincial-Territorial National Indigenous Forum. Once that's established, there will be a new rotation and Ontario will take over the chair, much to the relief of all the hard working staff that have worked so hard in order so that we could serve as a chair for two years. Thank you, Mr. Chair.