Bob McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Government of the Northwest Territories, we go to Ottawa and generally try to keep our asks to a manageable level. We focus on the areas of highest priority. I recognize that it’s been almost 20 years since the Hay River Harbour was last dredged, I think it was 1993-1994, and we’re quite prepared to do that in addition to spending money to do some work this summer. We have a small dredging program planned. We will also lobby the federal government.

Mr. Speaker, for the past year our government has been celebrating the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee with the rest of Canada and the 15 other Commonwealth Realms.

We began the Jubilee year last February when Members unanimously passed a motion in this House congratulating the Queen for her years of service. Over the year, communities came together in their own celebrations of the Queen’s reign, including feasts, Diamond Jubilee teas, essay contests, hockey tournaments, garden parties and barbecues.

One of the most notable ways we have celebrated the Jubilee has been our participation in the Queen...

We are prepared to participate and even contribute some funding as we’re doing for the program this year, but it’s still a federal responsibility and I suspect the federal government would not want to devolve this, which is typically a federal jurisdiction.

I think we can do better than that. There are a number of federal funding programs that we can access. We are working with the federal government on a Disaster Mitigation Program which we expect will be rolling out soon. We have our friends at CanNor and, also, there’s another federal funding program that we’re in discussions with the Government of Canada on. We can approach it on all of those venues as well as talking to the federal government about exactly what the Member is suggesting.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to recognize a Page from Yellowknife South, Bethany Giovanetto, and also all the other Pages who are working here this week.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to advise Members that the Tlicho Government will be signing the Devolution AIP.

---Applause

They are joining our Government, the Government of Canada and the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, Northwest Territories Metis Nation, Sahtu Secretariat Incorporated and Gwich’in Tribal Council as signatories. The Tlicho Government advised us of their decision at a meeting yesterday and we look forward to a signing ceremony in Behchoko on March 8th to welcome them back to the table as full partners in the future in the management of land and water resources in the Northwest...

We’ve done some work with our partners, specifically the Coast Guard, I think NTCL, and I think even Midnight Petroleum, and we’ve scoped out the potential costs for a very small dredging program. The cost estimate is about $2 million to $3 million. For a large dredging program it will be about $12 million. The problem, I think, that was identified by Mr. Bouchard, is that there is no existing dredge in Hay River. We would have to go and find one. I think the closest one is in the Columbia River area or we would have to go as far as the Mississippi. I think that if we do ramp up to that level...

We’re very close to finalizing a resource revenue sharing agreement between ourselves and the Aboriginal government partners that have signed on to the AIP. Once that is concluded, it will be very clear to everybody involved what kind of arrangements we have negotiated.

In our view, and the legal advice that we’ve been given, and with all of the non-abrogation clauses that we have concluded in the Devolution Agreement, we don’t feel that devolution will negatively impact on either negotiation of land claims or of self-government. Those negotiations will continue and there should be no negative impacts on those processes.

We have identified decentralization as a priority for this government. There are approximately 350 jobs that will be involved with devolution. Approximately 175 of those jobs are already located in the Northwest Territories. We expect approximately 175 or so jobs will be moved to the Northwest Territories. As part of the devolution negotiations, the Aboriginal partners that have signed on have clearly indicated that locating jobs to their regions where they come from will also be a very important consideration. As soon as we finalize our organizational design, and we’ve already identified the...