Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise to recognize just a few of the amazing artists of the Weledeh riding, knowing that this exercise simply reflects the incredibly talented people that can be found throughout the Northwest Territories in every one of our ridings. In doing so, I hope to underscore the important role and mentorship these people have in strengthening our community and northern spirit, our social relationships and our economy.

I’d like to start with mentioning visual artists in Dettah/N’dilo: Henry Beaulieu, Peter Mitchell, Alex Betsina. Craftspeople and artisans in Dettah: Paul...

Okay; I’d like to call Committee of the Whole to order. We have before us Minister’s Statement 80-16(2), sessional statement. What is the wish of committee? Mrs. Groenewegen.

Mr. Speaker, I believe that when the Premier was Minister of Finance, he made a commitment to look into getting some of these windfall profits that are happening from oil resources of the Northwest Territories as the price of oil has soared. The federal government is now accumulating hundreds of millions of dollars, for example, from Norman Wells. Is that going to be in or has it entered into this process? Will that be profiled? Is this an opportunity to deal with that situation so we get some immediate gain here?

Mr. Speaker, I would like to continue on this theme of devolution and resource sharing negotiations. I want to start by just noting that where there is a vacuum — that is, no information — false information will be developed. So it would be nice to get those vacuums filled.

My first concern is aboriginal governments. Like it or not, we do share governance with them. Which aboriginal governments and claimant groups were contacted by the Premier, and what was their response in this round?

The extra time reflects the many artists we have: Tracy Riley, Azure Degrow and Stephen Kakfwi are a few of the well known Weledeh musicians. Our talented photographers include Tessa Macintosh, Fran Hurcomb, Alex Beaudin and Ozgur Culha, to name a few. Christine Bourqe is known for her unique and original fur garment designs. We have Inuit sculptors, potters, jewellry makers, graphic artists, writers such as Jamie Bastedo, who has written many books of various sorts.

Mr. Speaker, our amazing artist community contributes to quality of life and plays a key role in attracting and retaining...

Mr. Chair, I move that we rise and report progress.

Mr. Chair, I can’t let this go without commenting once again on what some of the potential savings are by looking at fuel alternatives and transportation alternatives. I realize this one is for the aviation facility. It’s very difficult to avoid for Yellowknife, but it does raise the cost of maintaining tank farms. I just wanted to raise that as something we should be on the watch for. I’m sure the Minister is.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a quick follow-up on Mr. Hawkins’ questions. Presumably there are years when there is a surplus, when there is what we would call a good fire season. What happens to that surplus, and is there a chance it could be rolled into a fund?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to follow up briefly on that one. I assume there will be other labour contracts that we’ll come upon from time to time, employee contracts. It is my understanding that we might have a couple more supplementary appropriations and obviously very little room now. These are issues that were, of course, raised at our first review of the budget. Decisions were made to decrease concerns about decreasing the supplementary reserve.

I would like to ask the Minister: did we in fact make an error? Should we bump it up to be able to recover these costs? Can we expect this...

I’m hoping that this side of the House will be able to see the results of that exercise too. Is the Minister looking into revenue options that were not in the revenue options paper? Are his officials looking into other options perhaps as a result of the round table? If so, what are they?