Bob McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On average, it’s about six a year.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The Member can look forward to seeing our draft communication strategy and I don’t agree with his assessment that nobody has been in contact with anybody else that is not part of an Aboriginal government. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Partially right. There are also some negotiations with bands from outside the Territories and there’s the Acho Dene Koe from Fort Liard and the Sahtu communities are doing self-government negotiations.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess our end goal is we want all citizens in the smaller communities to have access to government services. I’ll have to go back and check at all the communities. I don’t have any government representation, or very limited government representation, to see what our end goal is so far. To date, where we’ve been able to find some resources, we’ve been trying to establish government services officers. The last time I checked, we were up to 13 government service officers. I imagine there are probably at least seven other communities that might need government services...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Implementation funding is to provide for funding of those activities that have been negotiated under the various land claims. As far as money for hiring interns to do research in different areas, that’s more usually done through the different departments like Health or Education. We do have two summer students usually every summer but we don’t have any interns planned.

Mr. Chair, we are not neophytes in devolution. We have been involved in devolution for 30 years. Devolution is the administrative transfer of programs from the federal government to the Government of the Northwest Territories. We are finalizing our communications strategy. There will be unprecedented consultation and public engagement with this particular devolution.

Certainly, we have been doing implementation planning for at least the past three or four years, so we are confident that the resources that are identified will be sufficient to allow us to have unprecedented engagement and...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. On my left I have Andy Bevan, acting deputy minister for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations, on my right is Richard Robertson, director of policy, planning and communications with DAAIR. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I guess I don’t mind taking responsibility for general service officers. But I think it was the staff of the Executive that came up with the idea. I think it was largely through the regional directors that work in the communities.

As far as cutbacks in band government funding, I’ve heard about it, but none of the chiefs have been in contact with me about it. I meet with the grand chiefs on a regular basis so we can ask them about it and see what the implications are.

As we predicted, the Government of Canada has appealed the decision. Our preliminary analysis is that it would have minimal or no impact in the Northwest Territories because of the fact that we’ve been treating Metis differently. We’re the only jurisdiction in Canada that has Metis health benefits. We’ve been accorded hunting rights. If anything, if the decision stands up we may have been able to recover some of the money that we spent on behalf of Metis, but that remains to be seen because it’s before the courts.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We haven’t finalized the exact number, but it will come out of the $22.5 million that we will be receiving from the federal government. Thank you, Mr. Chair.