Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I must take exception to the manner the Member raised in his Member’s statement about how this government has been pathetic in reaching out. The fact is, during the life of this government, the 16th Assembly, we set up the regional leaders approach that had all the regional leaders, presidents, grand chiefs at the table to help set the discussion about what we share and how we do work and things. At the table we also recognize that we’re not always going to agree on subject matters that come forward.

In fact, this agreement-in-principle that the Member is referring to...

The Member continues to stand up in this House and, in a sense, show disrespect to the process that we have put in place through regional leaders. The Member has at least in his mail copies of the letter and correspondence that we’ve sent to regional leaders to say we are working with them going forward with the regional leaders, so the grand chiefs, the presidents and the community leaders, the chiefs from their communities. We’ve invited them to give us times when they would like to meet and discuss how we proceed forward. So we’ve communicated on that behalf and await responses. In fact, we...

The process we have used has been absolutely inclusive. In fact, it’s through the modern treaties, as the Member has referred to them as, the land claims and self-government discussions and the ones that are in negotiations that set up the regional leaders process.

Every one of the regions has been a part of that process. It’s been at those regions, those regional leaders, the grand chiefs and the presidents that have said they’re the decision-makers that affect their claims and the people they represent, not the Dene Nation national chief. So we’ve worked with those regional leaders through...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Michael McLeod will be absent from the House today to attend the Western Transportation Advisory Council meetings in Vancouver. Thank you.

I’ll have to look at Hansard to figure out what specific part. We’re working with communities who have come forward and have done a fair bit of legwork. As I’ve said to the Member, we’re very interested in working with communities. I know that Municipal and Community Affairs has worked with communities and the Arctic Energy Alliance and communities have come up with energy plans and we’ll work with them. As the communities have worked with MACA, the Power Corporation, again, is open to looking at these requests to see what can be done and working with them on their energy plans as well. Thank...

I guess I can agree with the Member on the fact that we’re almost there. We’re getting there in the sense that at the recent meeting we had, there are issues that came up around quite a number of issues, whether it’s day-to-day programming we’re involved in as a government, some of the self-government discussions that are ongoing, and then the agreement-in-principle pieces as they stand themselves. As I’ve committed to the leadership in the Sahtu, that we would support them in the next meeting of March 7th and 8th, and would be ready to be in attendance there, as well, if the request was made...

As I responded earlier at the meeting, the leadership there was represented by the Norman Wells group, Deline and Tulita. They asked that we support them in the next meeting. They’re aiming for March 7th and 8th, I understand, to bring Fort Good Hope and Colville Lake into the meeting so they can deal with some of their internal matters around the districts and how they are represented at a regional level. Then I understand they’d be having a decision shortly after that as to signing the agreement-in-principle.

We’re continuing to work with them and, as I stated at the meeting, we’re supportive...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased to advise Members of the Legislative Assembly that His Royal Highness Prince William and Miss Catherine Middleton will visit the Northwest Territories this coming July as part of their royal tour of Canada.

---Applause

Yesterday, officials from the Department of Canadian Heritage contacted the Government of the Northwest Territories to advise us that the royal couple was specifically interested in visiting our Territory while they are in Canada. We were delighted to hear of their interest in the NWT and certainly look forward to welcoming them this summer.

Det...

If the Member could help set up communications with the community, I would gladly speak to the chair of the Power Corporation and inform him of our discussions here and a commitment to have an initial discussion about what it would take and what’s required to move this forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for that question because it gives me an opportunity to say that the Power Corporation is always interested in working with communities in trying to extend the benefits of our Corporation into those communities. In fact, there is some work that’s being done, for example, in the Nunakput riding of Ulukhaktok and looking at the plant there and the work that needs to be done at that, and looking at the past work and some of the heat distribution work that was done then. We’re looking at that.

For the community of Sachs Harbour in particular, if the...