Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to table a letter from the Norman Wells and District Chamber of Commerce directing me to table the letter they sent to me as the MLA for Sahtu. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I have two documents that I would like to table. First of all I wish to table the following document entitled Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal Recipients. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we will ask the staff to do what they can to prepare that information as quickly as possible and forward it to us, and we will forward it to AOC. I am certain that it will be more than ready by the time the session comes for it to be tabled. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the document that we expected to table is in fact not ready. We need to change the format and make sure that the information we give is accurate and is consistent between Ministers. It is not in fact ready, so we need a few weeks. We will be forwarding it to the chair of AOC as soon as it is prepared. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I am not privy to that information, so I will have to take it as notice for the Minister for RWED. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I wish once again to recognize my uncle, Jonas Kakfwi, who is sitting with us in the gallery visiting from Fort Good Hope.

-- Applause

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to speak today of a member of my community and my family in Fort Good Hope, Jonas Kakfwi who is also sitting in the gallery today. Jonas is an elder, a former trapper and for many years served as a janitor in the community of Fort Good Hope. His strongest and most enduring contribution is in fact, for 30 years or more, he was the lead and main fiddle player for the community of Fort Good Hope. One of his outstanding achievements is having learned to play the church organ at the age of 12, under a former member who is long deceased, Eddie Cook. For 57 years, Jonas has been going to church, leading the church, playing the organ and being the lead singer. He is still going strong. I just wanted to recognize my uncle. Thank you.

-- Applause

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Jim Antoine will be absent from the House today to attend to a personal matter. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to provide an update on the status of devolution negotiations which commenced on September 20, 2002, in Inuvik.

Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories, the Aboriginal Summit and the federal government are parties to the formal negotiations. An aggressive agenda was set with the objective of having a framework agreement within 12 months. The framework agreement is expected to identify and address issue areas, with the parameters laid out in relation to the resolution off any outstanding issues.

The parties have agreed to meet monthly as a main table and to establish side tables and working groups on specific subject matters such as contaminated sites and environmental liabilities and human resources.

Mr. Speaker, we believe that NWT governments have similar interests in relation to devolution. Together we recognize that control of our natural resources belongs with NWT residents, as do the benefits from the development of our resources. We have begun and expect to continue working closely with the Aboriginal Summit to achieve these interests and reach a deal that benefits the Territory as a whole.

The most difficult issue will be the degree to which NWT governments and their constituents will benefit from assuming the new responsibilities for the management of natural resources and from sharing resource revenues. This degree of benefit is referred to as the net fiscal benefit and is one of the critical areas of negotiations for NWT governments. There is little point in receiving the resource revenues if Canada then takes them back through other financing arrangements with NWT governments.

I spoke about the negotiation of the net fiscal benefit in the Legislative Assembly last week during question period. I expressed concern about the negotiation process with respect to the net fiscal benefit. As one party to the negotiations, we view the net fiscal benefit as an integral part of the devolution negotiations process that must be reflected in the devolution transfer agreement.

We understand that the federal government wishes to separate the net fiscal benefit negotiations from the devolution negotiations, which includes the collection of resource revenues and how they will be shared within the NWT as separate processes. This is largely because the Department of Indian and Northern Affairs is responsible for the devolution aspect of the negotiations while the federal Department of Finance has ultimate responsibility for the net fiscal benefit that would accrue to NWT governments.

I am encouraged from a recent meeting that Minister Handley and I had with Finance Minister Manley that he understands the importance of a net fiscal benefit and also that federal negotiators and departments need to work in close coordination and cooperation.

However, we cannot stress enough that these two parts of the puzzle have clear and critical linkages for NWT governments. Managing our natural resources and collecting and sharing resource revenues by NWT governments means little without ensuring that we keep a fair net fiscal benefit in the NWT -- a benefit that takes the needs of our governments into consideration -- a benefit that allows us to encourage more development while also managing the increased costs on programs and services, which resource development brings.

Mr. Speaker, all parties agreed to a devolution process that includes devolution, resource revenue sharing and a fair net fiscal benefit through the Memorandum of Intent for Devolution and Resource Revenue Sharing agreed to in Inuvik in May of 2001. I am fully confident that Canada will honour all of these commitments once it sorts out its administrative approach to these negotiations.

Mr. Speaker, I look forward to providing regular updates to the Members of this Legislative Assembly on the progress of negotiations over the next year. Mahsi.