Floyd Roland

All governments that I’ve been a part of, I know the Member as well, Members of this Assembly, we are all going to be challenged in every business plan cycle we go through with the fiscal restraints that we are faced with. The decisions that need to be made on key priority areas, how do we achieve them are going to always be debates as we go forward.

I will say, though, as we look at some of those questions that were asked of us, the Program Review Office has been involved with issues like medical travel, pupil-teacher ratio, inclusive school funding, telecommunications, harvester support...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The work that we have done has been by line departments. For example, I know we’ve looked at the growing seniors population in our communities and the fact that we will need to address those through program reviews. When there are requests from Members of this House to look at extending our home care, for example, or our seniors facilities, as well as increasing our health services or expanding education programs. Each department then does a bit of work to look at what it would require to step up and make decisions on a yearly basis of what we could afford. We haven’t...

Our Finance department, Minister Miltenberger has been in contact with Minister Flaherty around this work. We were informed that we should see a report as early as this spring, hopefully April, to move forward on this initiative.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The process underway, as highlighted a couple of times by the Minister of Finance for the Government of the Northwest Territories, Mr. Miltenberger, is we’ve been working with Finance Canada for some time and, as I’ve stated in a response to the letter I sent to Mr. Bevington, the fact that that is the process, we’re still engaged in working with federal Finance. I must say that I did have a meeting with Mr. Bevington on a number of issues. He did highlight this work and I raised the fact that we are doing our work and that’s the process we will be sticking with on that...

Again, the process I can see is we usually in plebiscites are seeking direction going forward on something and we have signed the agreement-in-principle. We are beginning the work of preparing for negotiations, where the advertisements, as the Member has spoken to, are to get information on the AIP out to the public for direction going forward. I guess that is something to be considered by a future government as a final agreement and should the GNWT sign depending who’s all at the table, in a sense. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We haven’t considered a plebiscite as part of the general election. I’m not too familiar with the territorial plebiscite process. I know we do have them for different parts of our legislation. For example, under the Liquor Act in our communities, that type of thing. I’m not sure on the territorial side, but we haven’t given it consideration as our signing of the agreement-in-principle begins the negotiation process towards a final agreement.

Mr. Speaker, I rise on a personal matter under Rule 20(1). Yesterday our Member of Parliament, the MP for the Western Arctic, testified before the federal Standing Committee on Aboriginal Affairs and Northern Development. The committee is considering Bill C-530. The MP’s private member’s bill is to amend the NWT Act to change the GNWT borrowing limit.

I am concerned his comments did not reflect all of the information that I conveyed to him. For the record, Mr. Speaker, in a letter dated October 20, 2010, I told the Member of Parliament the GNWT would await the outcome of the federal review of...

It’s hard to respond to that particular lead in to the question. As I said, we’ve had a couple of meetings over the life of this Assembly and Mr. Bevington’s representation in Ottawa on behalf of the people of the Northwest Territories. They’ve been sort of general in areas.

In particular in this area, when this one came up to inform him that we were doing our work and that’s the process, and concern that the work that he does may interfere with some of our work and hopefully that wasn’t the case. As well, I might say that I know as a Government of the Northwest Territories when the review of...

The processes we have available to us both as the Members of the Assembly and, of course, from the Executive side and looking at the devolution process, one, we count on feedback from Members of the Legislative Assembly, when they go back home to their constituencies, to provide feedback on that level. As well, from our departmental workings with Aboriginal governments and groups across the Northwest Territories, we seek their input from time to time on whether it’s a piece of legislation or a piece of policy work. The way we’re doing it now, providing information out there, again, from a...

It’s difficult to come up with a response or an answer that would be clear on this, because the fact is, as we’ve signed the devolution agreement to begin the process of negotiations towards a final agreement, I guess looking at the future as towards a final agreement is that something that can be considered at the time, I think the government-of-the-day would have to have a look at that. Our process in this fall election... What would a question be? The fact is we have signed an agreement and we’re beginning the process towards negotiation.