Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to respond to the minister's statement. Certainly in principle, at least, we would support this initiative although I find it somewhat curious that the minister introduces this statement and this initiative to devolve his responsibility in Yukon for natural resource management and environmental management. In reviewing the recently passed Yukon Act, let me say that the act does not appear to give the minister responsibility to devolve that power so it is pretty hard to assess the impact of the statement just made by the minister without more information on exactly how this power will be devolved to Yukon.
However, our party has always been supportive of initiatives of the government to bring the territories toward provincial status and more control over their own affairs and the management of their resources and their environment. I think that is good, but rather than being in sync with the Yukon Act, it appears to do quite the opposite. In fact, the Yukon Act sets up a management board that is entirely accountable to the minister. Then the minister turns around and devolves the power that he has to the Yukon government. That does not make a lot of sense.
Of course there is no mention, no insight at all, in the minister's statement or the Yukon Act on how the fiscal arrangement between the federal government and the Yukon Territory will in fact be affected by this initiative of the minister. Really all we can say is that we support the initiative in principle and that we look forward to more detail on how the fiscal arrangement between the two bodies will be adjusted in consideration of this initiative.