Bob McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my right I have Martin Goldney, deputy minister of the Department of Intergovernmental Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations; and on my left I have Richard Robertson, director of policy, planning and management. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. There appears to be a printing error, so we’ll advise the printers. Thank you.

I am pleased to present the 2014-2015 Main Estimates for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations.

The department’s main estimates propose an operations expenditures budget of $9.195 million, an increase of 5 percent from the 2013-2014 Main Estimates. This increase is largely attributed to $131,000 in forced growth for collective bargaining adjustments and $277,000 in investments to support the increased workload that will result from devolution. This includes assuming a lead role in lands negotiations at all Aboriginal rights negotiations in the Northwest...

We agreed to go through this bilateral process and there are a number of key markers for the Dehcho First Nation. Obviously, this 45 percent is still a big issue for them. On our part, we would like to see some movement on the devolution side, and I think that we will let the process run its course and I expect that if there is support from both parties that these matters will be dealt with.

I’m not aware of any petition on any website.

When we review the court case, we will look at our options and decide if we will take any action, if any. Obviously with devolution, we are looking at where the best locations for monitoring sites would be and I would expect we would look very closely at putting in monitoring sites in that area. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

The consultation process for the Peel River Watershed occurred in the previous… It’s taken the Yukon government seven years to come to this conclusion and the consultation period was the first part of the seven years. The previous Premier had written to the Government of the Yukon indicating that they supported 80 percent protection that the Gwich’in had requested through the consultation process. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

I believe it has all been shared with the Members, but I will resubmit them to committee. Thank you.

I’ll check with our website designers to see where you can find it. We’ve done better than that. We’ve written committee and updated committee on a regular basis and we’ve even had responses from committee commending us on the work and asking us for more detail on why we are moving the program review office from the Department of Executive to the Department of Finance. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think the Member has acknowledged the breach and now he’s trying to use process to not withdraw his remarks.

In this House, the process has always been you raise it at the first opportunity and almost every instance that I can recall, the 17th Assembly, the 16th Assembly, invariably the Member waits until the next morning so they have a chance to review Hansard. There’s no process for trying to find out how a Member feels when he’s making the remarks, but it’s very clear that if people outside this House can’t speak to protect themselves and it’s not normal process...