Yellowknifer: How long will it take for the federal government to make a finished western constitution law?

Stewart: I don't think anybody is too concerned that the process isn't completed by April 1999. It could continue to evolve.

I feel that the work is proceeding. I've spoken with (GNWT Aboriginal Affairs) Minister (Jim) Antoine a number of times about it, met with the aboriginal leadership about it as well. There's a work plan, in fact I think the (constitutional working group) is meeting today, and I'm hopeful we'll get some more indications as to what the time frame is.

Yellowknifer: How long would it take for the constitution that's approved by the NWT to become law?

Stewart: It's hard to say. I couldn't speculate ... it takes varying amounts of time.

Yellowknifer: How important, or urgent, it is?

Stewart: Yes, urgency (is a factor), but also how much public consultation that's been done previously, how much has to be done in the context of the legislation, all those sorts of things -- every bill is different.... Maybe there won't be a need to have a huge number of witnesses at the point of legislation, but every bill is different, so it's impossible to speculate.

Yellowknifer: Your predecessor (Ron Irwin) had a problem with the model of government, highlighted in the last constitutional package, that gave aboriginals two votes in territorial elections and non-aboriginals one. What's your view of that model?

Stewart: It's my understanding the original proposal didn't receive broad support here at all. Our intention is to have a made-in-the-North constitution for the Western Arctic and I think that's where we need to focus our attention.

Yellowknifer: If such a model did receive broad support would you support it?

Stewart: It's not very wise to comment on hypotheticals. We'll wait and see. I mean, what we want to do is try to reflect the interests of the people of the Western Arctic.

There's a process that's in place that includes a considerable amount of consultation. We'll let the process take its course and see what the results are."