Sharing resource revenues with Canada's northern territories was a central issue in federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff's tour of Yellowknife, which continued Tuesday.

Ignatieff said the link between resource development and aboriginal land claims was the focus of his morning meetings with aboriginal leaders.

"We've heard from them also that it's going to be very difficult to get resource development unless we get some of these jurisdictional tangles untangled, until we get respect for land claims, implementation of land claims," Ignatieff told reporters in the Northwest Territories capital.

"What we hear very clearly form the chiefs that I talked to is they want development to come to the North, provided it benefits their people and provided it benefits all northerners."

Ignatieff said a Liberal government's priority for the North would be on economic development and resource-revenue sharing, whereas the Conservative government has been focused on Arctic sovereignty.

Federal territorial talks

Newly-minted Liberal candidate Joe Handley said the Conservative government had little interest in resource revenue sharing when he was in territorial politics.

Handley was a central figure in federal territorial negotiations from 1999 to 2007, when he served as N.W.T.'s finance minister and premier.

Those negotiations came to a halt when Stephen Harper's Conservatives formed a minority government in 2006, Handley said.

"I had letters on my desk, as premier, from Prime Minister Harper promising things, saying, 'I will do it.' And there hasn't been a thing [that] happened," he said.

"I tell you, that's been going on and on and on, and I'm just fed up with the promises and nothing being delivered."

Ignatieff's official visit to Yellowknife, which began Monday, wraps up on Tuesday. He said he plans to spend the next two days vacationing in the North.

Although a federal election has not been called at this time, some have said Ignatieff's visit, much like Harper's pan-northern trip last week, looks like pre-election campaigning.

Political pundits speculate that an election could happen this fall.