Paul Quassa: If you look at the "Nunavut" Northern Perspectives, and the ballot of 14 April 1982, the question clarifies what we are talking about. It said right there, "If a majority of the voters agree that the Northwest Territories should be divided, the legislative assembly will request the Government of Canada to divide the Northwest Territories and create a new territory in the eastern part of the Territories." The second paragraph states very clearly that the legislative assembly will also request that a federal boundaries commission be appointed to consult with the people of the Northwest Territories and recommend the exact boundaries of the new territory. It states very clearly how the process was seen back in 1982. I think that's still the case. I think we are certainly moving forward to the issue of Nunavut. I think all we need is the help of a lot of people who are here and CARC.

We will also be needing a positive response from the Prime Minister with the letter that both the territorial government and TFN signed. I think that this whole process is good for Canada. It's good for the nation. It fits in the national agenda. As I said earlier, this whole process is just following the Canadian tradition. The only plebiscite that we foresee coming in the future would be on the issue of the boundary, and, as I said earlier, TFN is optimistic that we will be able to get that boundary one way or another. As Bob stated earlier, that boundary is very important, not just for the Nunavut issue but for our land selection. TFN has had discussions on the timetable, and we expect to start our negotiations on the land selections with both Keewatin and Iqaluit as early as January and March of 1991.

We all know that there is a lot of work ahead of us. Both TFN and the GNWT have been working very closely on the whole issue. I think the time-frame is one that can be met. The time-frame set is to have the Nunavut legislation on or before the legislation ratifying the final agreement. I think it was very well stated at the opening of this workshop by Murray Coolican that if we look at how all the other countries progressed, even within the last 12 months, the time-frame that both TFN and the GNWT are committed to is a very reasonable time-frame.

Again I would just like to say that the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee has done a lot of work in the past. And with this particular workshop and with the help of CARC and other interested agencies and people, TFN, the GNWT, and the federal government, I think we can make Nunavut a reality. They have gone this far, and I think that we are pretty optimistic that it could very well be met by the time-frames that were set between the two parties that signed the letter. Again I'd like to thank everyone for attending this very important workshop, and I know that there will certainly be future work for CARC. I think TFN is looking forward to working with the Canadian Arctic Resources Committee and groups that are interested in making the will of the Inuit a reality.

Ron Doering: Thank you, Paul. Now three brief comments from me. The first one is that I'm heartened by the candour of some of the conversations today, but frankly disappointed by the response of the federal and territorial governments on questions such as cost. It seems to me the old argument at least 10 years ago when I first got directly involved with this was, "First, we can't trust them to govern themselves because they are not ready. Second, even if they were, they can't afford it." It's no longer politically acceptable to say the former, end now we're resorting to the latter. The fact is that there is an immense amount of dissembling on this whole question of cost. I still don't see how Nunavut costs a cent. But I can see that the failure to get Nunavut will cost a great deal. TFN made it clear that there will be no land claims settlement unless there's Nunavut. That means that if there is no land claims settlement, then there is no clearing up of the title of the whole of the eastern Arctic. It means that the agreement that's been negotiated over the last 10 years will have to be set aside, and, sooner or later, people will have to go back to it or else these matters will end up in the courts.

And I might add that the courts are moving in a direction that, if I were a federal official, I would be a little worried.

 The cost of continuing to try to have a double colonization of the eastern Arctic will continue to grow. It's simply difficult to administer from that far away. Surely we don't have to wait until one of the 27 communities in the eastern Arctic be

 comes as famous as Oka in the national consciousness before we realize the human and social costs of not moving toward a moderate resolution of this matter. As Mr. Robertson pointed out, costs are wholly relative. We heard the Prime Minister  a couple of months ago talk about the fact that Indian people, including Inuit, are subsidized to $12,000 per year per capita, the suggestion being that that was a whole lot of money. Well, that's a lot less than the level at which we now subsidize every single Saskatchewan wheat farmer, for example, let alone those who live in Cape Breton and Newfoundland. I want to conclude by saying that I think that the onus is on the governments to calculate the incremental new net costs of Nunavut. And so far, all we've heard is that there is a lot of work to be done here, and clearly there is. We're all going to have to work together on that. Maybe that's what it comes down to.