Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this House has heard me talk many times about what I call the good ol' days, and I refer back about 20 years ago in 2003 when the thought of the Mackenzie Valley pipeline was alive and well led by the aboriginal pipeline group which made up of 30 Indigenous community leaders. They've got a one third stake in that project. Inuvik was bustling. We had a petroleum show with seven, 800 members showing up there, and participants. And then alas, as I've said before, we took five years and our regulatory regime slowly choked the life out of that project, and it died. And in 2017, ABG was no more. But there is some hope, Mr. Speaker. We have seen the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation now developing their own natural gas well up there and will be providing energy to our region.
And, Mr. Speaker, I talked about the economy earlier on this week and how we need an economic engine. We do need drivers to keep our economy going. And I still think one of those drivers is the production and export of natural gas in the region. As we know, in 2021 there was a pre-feasibility study done by this government that said it was technically and financially feasible to do this work. So now I think we have a new leadership at IRC, they are doing their own work. I would hope that the Minister is now reaching out to the new chair to now plan for a real and robust feasibility study around natural gas and it's production in the Beaufort Delta so we can truly see some economic stability in our territory. And I do believe that that could be the economic engine that pushes us forward as we see other industries obviously declining in our territory, Mr. Speaker. So I will have questions for the Minister of ITI later today on what we're doing to move this important project forward, whether we're seeking funding to get the robust feasibility study done, and where we are today with our natural gas. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.