Bob McLeod

The Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources will be meeting with the federal environment Minister next week in Vancouver. He will be raising that matter with her. Certainly, we are prepared to go to Ottawa to meet with the Prime Minister to discuss this very important matter.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Porcupine caribou herd is probably one of the healthiest herds that we have in the North. That is largely due to very strong management by the national and international Porcupine Management Board and as well as the people of the Mackenzie Delta who view it very important to protect these animals and to use them wisely.

In the Northwest Territories, as well, we place a very large importance on caribou calving grounds. We have caribou protection measures for the various areas. Certainly, we will take whatever action we felt would be necessary to protect the animals...

Over the years, we have had occasion to travel to Washington for numerous reasons. I think we will be prepared to do that again. We will see how many Cabinet Ministers we would have to take, but I think it is a big enough issue, international issue, that I think it is an important matter that we will be prepared to discuss with the leadership in the area, as well. I think it would be helpful to have a coordinated effort. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I believe the Board of the Porcupine Management has been doing a very excellent job, as I said. I have not been approached to take any specific action, but we are quite prepared to do that. Twenty years ago, when Jean Chretien was the Prime Minister, we did write a letter to the Prime Minister encouraging him to take action with the United States government the last time this came up.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. To open this discussion, I’d like to make some brief remarks on the proposed revised mandate of the Government of the Northwest Territories, 2016-2019.

In June of this year, Cabinet and Regular Members each tabled their respective reports reflecting on the government’s progress on our mandate. These reports provided a critical evaluation of our progress on the almost 200 commitments in the mandate, including suggestions to ensure we continue to work effectively toward fulfilling the priorities of the 18th Legislative Assembly through the second half of our term.

Since June...

We’re always looking at ways to become heroes,

---Laughter

but I should say that over the past three years the friendship centres have accessed funding from the territorial government. We’ve provided over $900,000 to the friendship centres for program delivery. The friendship centres provide a lot of important programs and services on our behalf, and they also are able to access, on an application basis, other funding pots that are available. As I said, I expect to be able to respond to the friendship centres with regard to trying to find a way to work with them and to improve their ability to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I’ll thank the Member for the question. I just want to point out that friendship centres provide a very important service to the communities, and the friendship centre movement I believe is a very unifying force in the communities. Having said that, the friendship centres are core funded by the federal government and the Government of the Northwest Territories is not privy to those fiscal arrangements.

I do know that the federal government has been looking at a broad range of fiscal arrangements with Indigenous organizations and this may include friendship centres...

We attempted to organize the meeting with the three northern Premiers because historically, we work to have a united position on a lot of these issues. Also, we are doing work on a pan-territorial sustainable development vision which we are trying to do in conjunction with the development of a federal arctic policy framework, but we were not able to get the three northern Premiers together because it was just too short a period of time, and everybody was arriving at different times.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I had the opportunity to attend the swearing-in of the new Governor General of Canada and I was honoured to be invited. It was a very impressive ceremony and we have a very impressive new Governor General. I also attended a meeting of the consult of federal Premiers and attended a First Ministers' Meeting hosted by the Prime Minister of Canada with the three national Indigenous government leaders and the Premiers of all the provinces and territories. Then we moved into a First Ministers' Meeting with just the Prime Minister and the premiers. The agenda for the first...

I think it would be a shame if friendship centres had to lay off workers and employees because funds that are supposed to flow are not flowing as quickly as they should. We’re quite prepared to work with all of the different bodies and institutions to try to find a workable arrangement so that friendship centres can continue to provide the important services that they provide to the communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.