Bob McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are a number of very important visitors that I want to recognize. From the Tlicho: Grand Chief Eddie Erasmus and his wife, Frances Erasmus; Chief Clifford Daniels; Bertha Rabesca-Zoe, legal counsel with the Tlicho; former chief, Leon Lafferty. From the Gwich’in: vice-president Norman Snowshoe and Jozef Carnogursky. From the Akaitcho: Chief Edward Sangris, Roy Erasmus, former chief Peter Liske. Also, I want to recognize former Lapointe Hall student Sam Gargan. From the Northwest Territories Chamber of Commerce: president Kathy Gray and executive director Mike...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, Members, for your comments here today. It is clear that each of us cares deeply about the future of this territory.

We have a chance to make history here. For all my life, critical decisions about what happens in this territory have been made by the federal government. When I was born in Fort Providence, the Territorial Council, the forerunner to this Legislative Assembly, was still based in Ottawa, and included five appointed Members and only three elected representatives.

Times have changed. There are 19 of us now, responsible for our own budget of...

WHEREAS the transfer of responsibility from Canada to the Government of the Northwest Territories for public lands and resources, including rights in respect of water, has been an objective of this Legislative Assembly;

AND WHEREAS negotiations among the Government of Canada, the Government of the Northwest Territories, the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, the Northwest Territory Metis Nation, the Sahtu Secretariat Inc., the Gwich’in Tribal Council and the Tlicho Government have resulted in a proposed Northwest Territories Lands and Resources Devolution Agreement;

AND WHEREAS residents of the...

We have a third-party accountability framework and it has three categories. The categories that provide services to the Government of the Northwest Territories, we can provide multi-year funding agreements, and depending on the type of service and the kind of NGO, and if they get funding from the Government of the Northwest Territories, there are different categories of reporting that are required. So if you’re not providing essential services, then your reporting requirement is not as complicated as for the NGOs that provide essential services. Thank you.

I want to clarify that the NGO Stabilization Fund is just a top-up fund. There are three other categories of funding that are providing funding to NGOs from all different departments. So I’m sure that if you clarify what it is that you want for land claims, we can see if it fits into one of those categories. Thank you.

Essentially what our government wants to do is we want to help NGOs that have no other access to funding. I would think land claims organizations negotiate land claims agreements with other governments and they have access to resources. I would think skidoo clubs were the same; they could access resources. We don’t want to lose sight of the fact that funding the NGO Stabilization Fund is focused on those NGOs that provide essential services to the Government of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

We would have to work with all Members of this Assembly to try to address that decision. At this point in time, we are just starting our main estimates process, and there are tremendous demands for fiscal resources, and if the Legislative Assembly feels that that’s the direction we should go in, obviously we look at all of these parameters when we do our main estimates.

We have a committee made up of a combination of Cabinet Ministers and MLAs. We have three Cabinet Ministers and five MLAs on the Committee on Sustainability of Rural and Remote Communities. The terms of reference provide that it would provide advice to Cabinet.

The way I would see it is that this committee, we would have to work it so that it can tie into the budget process so that their recommendations can be provided on a timely basis, in time that they could be considered when we do capital planning and our main estimates.

I think that request seems very simplistic, and if you multiply that a thousand-fold, we still wouldn’t have enough money. I think we have to be focused.

I also talked about the third-party accountability framework. The NGO Stabilization Fund is just a top-up. There are three categories of NGO funding that are provided for by all departments. That’s what the framework is for, is to categorize the level of reporting for the funding that is received by NGOs. Not all NGOs provide essential services to the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The changes that we made were we clarified who was eligible to apply. We were getting all kinds of applications from organizations and groups that were applying that didn’t provide any services to the Government of the Northwest Territories. We also tightened up the program so that we could get the request for applications out soon and that we would process the applications on a timely basis and flow the money out promptly.