Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, I guess, in all fairness, we all have 10 minutes to speak and so does the Minister Premier. I guess I could speak for a few minutes on the main topic that I would like to cover in this area, and that is the lands and resource negotiations. I see that there are extra, additional resources that the Premier has spoken of, of $595,000 to the aim of finalizing lands and resources and self-government agreements.

I just want to talk a bit about what I am seeing as I guess you would call it a bit of a deficiency in the process. The first one is the land use planning process. I know that Cabinet, or at least the Minister of Education, has talked about looking at funding job creation for Akaitcho in the area of land use planners as they are trying to put a group of people together.

I know that I have had some discussion with the Premier on what had occurred prior to devolution. Prior to devolution, there was money provided to other claimant groups, whether they be ones that were settled or ones that were not settled. All the same, there was money put towards the land use planning document that I will refer to it as for a couple of Aboriginal governments, but not for Akaitcho.

What, I guess, is something that I would like to see the Premier do in the area of Indigenous Affairs is to take a serious look at that. These are small communities that are represented here. If that means that we do some of the small community fund, small community employment program to provide so that they could hire some local land-use planner -- some of the young people that are already working in that area would be skilled with some direction from maybe a professional land-use planner to take a look at trying to put something together. I think it becomes an essential part of the negotiation process with Akaitcho.

I am not fully up to speed on whether or not the Metis have a land-use plan, but then it is a little bit of a discussion for me because the NWT Metis Nation spills into Hay River, your riding, Mr. Chair, and also in Fort Smith. It is not something I can take on my own and say this is what is needed, because I think it needs to be more of a joint effort and coming from them. Akaitcho clearly has come to me and clearly has asked that some money be provided for land-use plan so that they could put this big piece of the puzzle in place for potential settling of the lands and resource negotiations.

The other thing that has always puzzled me has been the self-government aspect of the negotiations. I don't see our government -- by "our government," I am referring to the Government of the Northwest Territories -- as being a big part of building capacity for potential or future self-government. I think that more effort must be put in there. I know they are at the table, and I know they are moving forward. I am not sure that once the agreement is signed, how quickly we could move to implementation.

Does that mean that, once the agreement is signed, it is at that point that we recognize the resources that need to transfer from the territorial government to the Indigenous governments of Akaitcho at that point? Then we start working on the building of the capacity? To me, looking at it from a perspective, although I am obviously not fully versed on what is going on at the negotiation tables and certainly not versed at what had gone on with the other places that were settled, the drawing down of the departments, the choices and how they draw down what the Akaitcho are drawing down and so on, that type of thing.

I am wondering if some of that work could be done simultaneously during negotiations, because it seems like it is done consecutively. It appears as though we are slowly moving towards developing capacity so that, when you sign an agreement that says lands and resources and self-government agreement, that is a step, and then the next step is to try to build the capacity. As I see it, a land-use plan for the lands and resources is something I think that is essential. It is difficult to move without it. Also, the self-government capacity-building would be something that would be difficult to engage the Indigenous governments if we don't work on capacity now.

I am essentially saying that I think that the government has to start to look at what resources are there, what will be drawn down by the governments, determine what will be drawn down, and allow them to set up a structure that can govern themselves. Right now, if we had wrote a cheque to the Aboriginal governments for all of the areas that will be drawn down, they would spend a lot of their money just building capacity and not delivering programs. I think we should be working with them as a territorial government, working with them to build that capacity so that, when the agreement is signed, they are ready to roll into self-government quicker. If that is their desire and if that is what they are negotiating, I suppose that we should be working with them to try to build up that capacity. Those are the two areas I speak of today. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.