Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, I think that regardless of what the agreement looks like, we are basically at an area of contention where we have a large majority of the Aboriginal groups, especially throughout the Mackenzie Valley which is basically covered by Treaty 8 and Treaty 11 who have the most at stake. I think a lot of people’s concept of devolution is not simply transferring positions from Ottawa to the Northwest Territories and basically taking over government responsibilities.

Think from the Aboriginal perspective. They look at it differently. It is basically the lands and resources...

I’d just like to know, did you consult with any of the smaller communities such as Tsiigehtchic or Colville Lake or communities of that nature in regard to having small populations and requiring them to put in more responsibilities on them in regard to having to take on these types of amendments, because its miscellaneous for me. That basically means that somebody has to do the paperwork and follow the requirements that we put forward through these type of amendments. So have you consulted with small rural communities under, say, a population of 200?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As we all know, we basically established the legislation to empower the communities, but again, I think by bringing forward these statute amendments, I am wondering if there is any fiscal obligations that we may have or that there could be fiscal pressures put on the municipalities or local governments to administer these statutes by way of the amendments. If so, is this government going to be financially providing assistance to those communities that may have to take on more work in the light of the challenges they have?

I know a lot of the communities, especially in...

Thank you. Those are all good programs, but the downfall of that program is the way that you do the household income testing. As soon as a family member comes to visit their parents or a relative or a grandchild comes to spend some time with their parents, they’re penalized, and for me that is the problem with the programs. We have to remove those barriers where you penalize families for visiting family members. I think that is the key in making sure this program works. So could we remove that clause that discriminates families from being families? So I’d like to ask the Premier if he can...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are directed to the Premier in light of the program services we have to offer for our seniors and to ensure them that they do live independently, more importantly, that there are supports for them to remain in their home communities in their homes and not have to leave our communities to other facilities such as, say, long-term care facilities in Inuvik and elsewhere. I would like to ask the Premier, would he take it into consideration that there is also an economic cost of having to move people into those types of facilities, the daily cost, the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regard to the whole devolution process I don’t think we really have had an opportunity to have a discussion on it publicly in the format of this House or Committee of the Whole. I think that we do have to give it due diligence and make sure that we do have some discussion on it.

I believe that devolution has been a long time coming, but at what cost are we willing to proceed. I think the challenge we face, the agreement that we have in front of us, the question is did we get an agreement simply for the sake of getting an agreement or have we got the best agreement we...

Mr. Chair, I’m talking about the smaller communities that are struggling. They basically have small populations, they’re receiving less revenues from the Government of the Northwest Territories because of the way the gas tax dollars have been allocated and we are seeing some challenges by way of human resource challenges by simply administering and offering those requirements that we put on them through this type of legislation.

I think at the end of the day we have to be cognizant that all communities are not the same. It might be great for large municipalities where you have a large workforce...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to thank the Premier for his comments, but again, we do have to remove those barriers that do put barriers on families, and more importantly, the elders, because at the end of the day the elders are being penalized. They’re not accessing those programs simply because they didn’t have the paperwork. They didn’t have the income requirements that are needed by the program. So I’d just like to ask that they allow for some flexibility, some exemptions where a family member is there taking care of the person, which is saving the government costs, and that we’re able...

Ms. Schofield.

Does committee agree that we’ve concluded the Department of Justice?