Bob McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Member knows, with this new federal government, there have been certainly increased interactions at all levels, and with a lot more of the work being done in Ottawa. There's been a substantial increase in what we call FPTs, or federal-provincial-territorial meetings. Specifically, the deputy secretary will provide strategic advice to the Premiers, Ministers, secretary to Cabinet, and deputy ministers on an engagement that the federal government aim at achieving the Government of the Northwest Territories' key objectives; lead the development of an updated...

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair. I certainly believe that we can accomplish that. We bring in all of the GSOs for training at least twice a year. We also have a plan, so we will have an idea. We have GSOs currently who assist smaller communities nearby. They assist with the coverage. They can certainly assist with the capacity building. Some of the smaller centres, we have halftime positions, as well, so I believe that we can certainly develop a plan so that we can not only train people but we can also cover all of the small communities. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I said, the Department of Executive only provides administrative services to the PUB, and the PUB has one staff, and that staff looks after the administrative arrangements for the Public Utilities Board. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I said MACA deals with volunteerism. I think this fund primarily promotes community services. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. We're certainly prepared to do that. We will find out which communities have radio stations, and I'm sure we can get our GSOs to go on the air and talk about some of the services that they can provide, and educate, and communicate the programs and services that are available to people. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't want to muddy the waters, but as we have said before for those regions or Aboriginal governments that have land claims that have negotiated arrangements where these types of cabins are not fully taxed or they are not taxed, we have been talking at least to the NWT Metis Nation where we are expecting we are very close to having an agreement. We have asked them to quantify the issue and we are going to look at what arrangements can be done. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My understanding is we thought we were responding positively to requests from the standing committees, specifically the Standing Committee on Government Operations. It is my expectation, and I certainly believe that this responsibility is more properly housed within the Department of Infrastructure. I expect the appropriate direction will emanate from that department. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My understanding is MACA has responsibilities for volunteerism and other voluntary services, and also dealing with the communities. So they're in a much better situation to deal with the funding requests and the services that are provided through that fund. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly, as soon as this budget is approved, we'll have a more definitive plan recognizing that some communities are harder to fill, to staff GSOs than others; but certainly we will have a plan that will lay out where we would see GSOs being housed. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Well, we as a government have met on bilateral basis with the NWT Metis Nation, where they requested an opportunity to clarify their positions on several long-standing items, and I certainly believe that we had a very good discussion. We went a long way to having a better understanding of each other's positions, and I think it certainly advanced the discussions.

We were invited to the public meeting that the NWT Metis Nation leadership had here in Yellowknife, along the North Slave Metis Alliance, and at some point, early in the meeting, they asked the government people to leave, and they were...