Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The process of the negotiated contract policy that the government holds is one that has been put in front of aboriginal organizations and governments for their review and consultation with us, and some amendments have taken place. That policy has been on the books for quite a number of years. When the issue of the negotiated contracts comes up, that is when the claims are very specific. If we are going to negotiate a contract, then we have to go to the aboriginal organization that is in the area. In this case, both organizations, the Inuvialuit and Gwich’in, provided...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The small communities committee the Member is speaking about…. We did have correspondence with the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning, and we’re awaiting their response to the proposal that was put in front of them.

The process we’re involved with is when the joint committee works with Priorities and Planning and awaits their response. If it was an internal committee of Cabinet, we could undertake our own work. Between now and then I’m prepared to sit down with the Members, unofficially, to discuss concerns that are out there for Members. For the actual process of coming up with membership on the committee, we’re awaiting, again, the response of Priorities and Planning.

Mr. Speaker, we’re trying to, as I stated earlier, go through this initial process. Any policy work we would do we would bring to committee for review and testing if, in fact, we’re heading in the right direction. We’re hoping we’ll be able to bring something forward during this winter. I don’t know if we’d call it the winter session, but at that point, we’ll try to bring something forward to Members for review.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We place in a high priority area, as the Member has pointed out, the fact that we have to look at other avenues of dealing with some of the larger initiatives that we are looking at within the Northwest Territories. I committed to having the P3 policy review put in place. Deputies met a number of months ago. In fact, I’ve had meetings as well and invited a firm to come up North to sit down with us to begin looking at a P3 process.

Mr. Speaker, we will do that as we do with any policy work. If we’re to change it, we’ll work with the appropriate committee to have input and give us feedback. So we will be doing that, yes.

Mr. Speaker, we do have a policy. It is a very old policy. We recognize that. We’re looking at other jurisdictions for policies they’ve put in place, and that’s why the review is going forward. We will have deputies meeting again on this later on this month. As I’ve stated, I’ve also invited a firm that has much experience in this area to sit down with us to look at development in this area.

The Member is speaking about the devolution and resource revenue sharing file, and that’s being handled through the Department of Executive and myself, working with Cabinet. I’ve gone forward and presented a proposal that has been put on the table. We know we’re working from a framework that was already in the system for quite a number of years. I’ve also spoken to the Member and informed him that there are a number of initiatives, if we get a proposal put forward, that we can build on as Members of the Legislative Assembly. That’s the process we’re involved with.

As for a commitment from...

Mr. Speaker, at the earliest opportunity I rise on a point of order from the events of yesterday’s Committee of the Whole discussions, under section 23(i) of our Rules of the Legislative Assembly, where a Member imputes false or hidden motives to another Member.

Yesterday in Committee of the Whole Mrs. Groenewegen, in the unedited Hansard of Wednesday, October 8, 2008, page 62, in questioning the Finance Minister, asked this question: “was the MLA who approved the negotiated contract the MLA for Inuvik, the Premier and the Chair of the Finance Management Board?”

Mr. Speaker, I would say that...

Mr. Speaker, there are a number of ways of doing that. Internally, the Member is quite familiar with the process of business plans and how we get initiatives on the table and move forward. There are many competing interests, and we don’t have the resources to deal with all of them.

On the federal side, depending on the initiative, if it’s an initiative with ITI or ENR on different funds or policies that the federal government may be working on, we work with committees; for example, the devolution and resource revenue file. Members are aware that we already had a starting point when this...