Bob McLeod

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don’t believe anything prevents this Assembly from putting a triggering mechanism in place. I think there would be some issues if the triggering mechanism would fetter future governments. I think that, as a government, we have committed to undertaking a process of educating and making information available on all of the legislation and all the responsibilities that have been devolved, and it was also committed, as I’ve said many times, we will devolve and evolve and we have committed to establishing a process to review throughout the Territories and to look at all of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Our government policy or rule of thumb is that in every instance we will appoint members from the Northwest Territories. I’ll ask, through you, Mr. Chair, Ms. McLaughlin to point out the exact clause and confirm that.

Yes, I would, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To my right I have Kelly McLaughlin, the director of Legislation with the Department of Justice. To my left I have Jamie Fulford, legal counsel with the Department of Justice. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 17, Northwest Territories Intergovernmental Agreement on Resource Revenue Sharing Agreement Act, be read for the second time.

Mr. Speaker, this bill provides for the sharing of the net fiscal benefit in accordance with the Northwest Territories Intergovernmental Resource Revenue Sharing Agreement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to waive Rule 69(2) and have Bill 15, Oil and Gas Operations Act, moved into Committee of the Whole. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

---Unanimous consent granted

We will find a way to get input from people that have large amounts of land that have some information to contribute.

Obviously, there’s more than just this Legislative Assembly. For example, Yellowknife has seven MLAs that people in Yellowknife can just phone and walk to their MLAs’ doors and provide input. We also have other avenues. We have committee meetings. We have departments where we consult, and then we consult and we consult on every imaginable kind of policy, and we seek input and then we go back and go back to the committees for their input and then, as a government, we take a position or develop a policy and then we would work with our Aboriginal governments on the Intergovernmental Council for...

Obviously, when we discussed this we talked about involving Aboriginal governments. I know that committee also has some ideas of who should be involved. We will take all of those ideas and work with committee to come up with a process that would be acceptable to the majority. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We are having active discussions with the other Aboriginal governments who have not signed on as of yet. Our objective is to have 100 percent of the Aboriginal governments sign on. The federal government has indicated that their financial contributions will cease after one year, but as a government we will welcome the Aboriginal governments that have not signed on yet. Preferably, our objective is within a year, but I think it will be a standing offer.

We have in place with the Dehcho, a working group of senior officials with oversight provided by myself and the grand chief of the Dehcho First...