Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The hope is at some point it will become a routine part of doing business, but as we endeavour to go down this process of setting up the regional leaders meetings, and that’s what this funding is tied to, it’s contribution to the seven regional groups so that they can take part in this. When we talk about doing these things, the issue of capacity and revenues comes into discussion and this is our way of helping them participate in our ongoing meetings.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Again, there’s a lot of history. The Member has touched on it, I’ve touched on it, about processes that were established. Yes, the issue of devolution on lands and waters within the Northwest Territories, and these are waters, for example, inland lakes and so on, that are managed today by someone who wears a badge that has a federal government insignia on it; an INAC employee or others in similar areas of responsibility. All we are talking about is drawing that existing authority that is practiced by the federal government who has shown us on a number of occasions and...

I think the reflection of this Legislative Assembly shows we’re not just like the federal government. I take a point with drawing that comparison. The fact that if you look at the document and you look at the history and you look at the work done on that document, it had the inclusion of Aboriginal governments. The offer is still on the table for them to be a part of the process going forward. We’ve made every offer and in fact continue to make the offer to try to come to an agreement on moving forward with those that have not signed on. The AIP itself allows for the groups to join on at any...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I know Members have called on us to establish an additional position to have for dealing directly with non-government organizations. We make a distinction between the volunteer sector as well as the NGOs. We have, in a sense, through the Department of Executive, been taking on the NGO file around the Stabilization Fund and dealing with the non-government organizations. I’ll ask Ms. Ballantyne to make some comments on this.

The other thing that wasn’t highlighted was the regional Aboriginal leaderships meetings funding and processes held within the Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations and a number of our meetings that we had, especially leading up to the AIP, were funded directly through this shop. When it comes to having groups sign on, I mean, I think a number of them have highlighted their reluctance to sign on for a number of reasons. Some of them are more particular to the negotiations that would have to occur and wanting those dealt with up front, which would be difficult to do, especially...

Mr. Chairman, the question of the work we are involved in, for example, with MACA, we worked with them in preparation of the legislation they put together on the NWT portion.

On the bigger picture, involved with Executive and other departments on the approach to the federal government to see what work they would be doing. Unfortunately, as the Member pointed out, we haven’t had much success in that area. Our role is to work with land departments because they have a direct responsibility with the appropriate federal office and ministry and we help them with the preparation of those meetings as...

Thank you. I can’t speak for future governments in the final decision and the final agreement process, but clearly, as we’ve done the work up to this stage it has been inclusive of all the regions, at least in the designing of the agreement-in-principle. I would say that since, even as observers, they’ve been influencing the language of the agreement-in-principle, as I’ve just responded earlier to a question. We would hope that they would be at the table to help design and impact the language that we would use going forward. Some of those things require bilateral discussions or bilateral...

Mr. Chairman, that is a chief negotiater position. Thank you.

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

In directorate, for example, we have one at P2, one at P1, and both are female. In policy and planning we have a number of P2s and a P1 in our system. Negotiations is where I think we’ve done a fair bit of work that we’ve stepped up at negotiator and chief negotiator positions where we have in negotiations one chief negotiator P1, we have a senior negotiator P1, another senior negotiator and four assistant negotiators P1s that we’re hoping to be able to move up as we’ve put this program in place. Implementation, same thing. We have three in P1 category and three in the P2 category...