Floyd Roland

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.

The groups have been involved from the earliest days, right from 2002 forward up until the protocol work we were doing. All groups were involved in that. We looked at the request from the Dene Nation, reviewed it to see how we could look at doing this work and reaching out, and the decision was to work with the regional approach that we put together at the start of this Assembly and we’re continuing to do that. We have contacted the Dene Nation and informed them our approach will be with the regional and community leaders.

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...

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...

I respect the Members who rise on issues and present a certain case on behalf of their constituents in communities.

In the matter of partnerships and working together, I think we can point quite clearly to a number of big pieces of legislation that this government has been working on that we have worked hand in hand with in developing legislation. I would say this is one of the first for the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Look at the Wildlife Act that’s being worked on, worked in partnership co-writing the legislation. Look at the Species at Risk Act. That’s another piece of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for rising on the issue of the agreement-in-principle. We did travel together and took part in the meeting. I must say that I viewed the meeting as a glass half full. I’m not sure if the Member was looking at it as half empty. There are challenges and issues that were raised at the meeting. As we had opportunity to speak with them, we recognized that challenge. There are issues around the agreement-in-principle that as I spoke to the leadership and heard from the leadership that we feel we can work forward on by signing the agreement-in-principle...

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...