Floyd Roland

Earlier as well, the Member mentioned Norman Wells as the one-third ownership the federal government has, and they call it equity as their ownership piece. The two-thirds that are there do provide royalties to the Aboriginal groups and to the Government of Canada. So two-thirds of that asset is already paying royalties. The issue is on the one-third ownership of the federal government.

Let’s do some history here. The Sahtu and the Gwich’in took the federal government to court based on that being a royalty. In fact, we, as the GNWT of the day, we’re quite supportive of that initiative. The...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Now that we have a signed agreement-in-principle we will be able to reach out to all our households across the Northwest Territories. We are in the process of developing a householder that can go into the homes to give a plain language overview of the agreement-in-principle. As well, while that is being developed and hopefully once we have a draft copy, we can send it off. It will be a matter of weeks to get that out.

The other side of it is through the radio and using Aboriginal languages interpretation to reach out to our communities through the radio programs that are...

As we correspond with the regional leaders and the chiefs in the communities, the elected leadership, we will have that as one of the options. Again, if the regional leaders bring their chiefs and they feel satisfied that’s the approach, we would work with them. If there’s a request to go in, we would take that into serious consideration of being able to go into the communities.

One of the things that we need to do as we prepare to do this, there’s the first version of this is what the AIP is and what it says. Secondly, is our process going forward, and we will need much more time on that...

As I’d mentioned earlier, there’s a number of things we’re doing with communications. One, first and foremost today, is tabling the signed agreement-in-principle. Secondly, working on the householder, which will go into all homes across the Northwest Territories, a plain language version of the agreement-in-principle. And probably more importantly and sooner to that plain language document, is through the Aboriginal languages be able to speak to the key points of the agreement-in-principle. Also more importantly, I talked about letters to go out hopefully before the end of the day, or as we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The transfer of authority for public lands and resources to the Government of the Northwest Territories will create major benefits and opportunities for our people.

Approval of the proposed AIP will be a critical step in our negotiations with Canada, but it is just another step. It is not the final agreement and it will not be legally binding.

Throughout our negotiations, there have been other times when the parties have signed agreements confirming their plans and intentions. We saw this when Canada, the GNWT and aboriginal governments endorsed the Memorandum of Intent...

Mr. Speaker, I think the Member, as well, has past experience in negotiations. As they go to an AIP, once the initialling happens, at that point, then, you have your technical briefings, have the discussion about what it means as you enter into then the final set of negotiations. We haven’t even entered in. We haven’t even initialled an agreement-in-principle. In fact, as I said earlier, aboriginal governments have been part of this negotiation, informing of this AIP, especially in the Chapter 6 portion of that. The decision made was expressed at a number of meetings by the federal negotiator...

Mr. Speaker, the process and the communications between the aboriginal groups and ourselves and aboriginal governments on what we need to do going forward and some of those concerns, we’ve been tracking those. Again, with respect to the process, I’d like to sit down with the aboriginal leaders and have the discussion specifically about the points they’ve raised. Some have put it quite publicly, their emotions, and, in fact, naming of negotiators to go forward with concerns about a process going forward. I hope that as we have our meeting this evening, that we will be able to put certain...

We could use up the rest of this time period and go over in fine detail all of the meetings held, all the information shared and the actual face-to-face meetings. The letter the Member is talking about, and he’s raised already on a number of occasions, we’re showing Members our responses. The responses will go out. Meetings have been held and will continue to be held. The fact is, consultation is happening, has happened, and will continue to happen. What is the fear that is really there or is it really a monetary issue that needs to be discussed? All of these things, I believe, the majority of...

The fact of the matter is -- and I can repeat almost word for word as the Member just spoke -- that the land claims have written in them resource revenue sharing arrangements with the federal government. The fact that what the Northern Accord may have stated is one thing that they never got ratified. It hit a certain point and there it sits. The land claims now hold the legal status of that. The agreement-in-principle now takes it to the next step where in fact if we were to sign this and go forward and agree, the governments-of-the-day, sign an agreement, a final agreement, there would be...

Mr. Speaker, absolutely. As I meet with the aboriginal leadership this evening, we will express the fact that we want to continue to work together with an approach that is focused from the North for Northerners. Right now there are many examples, even in a statement earlier today, about decisions being made in Ottawa that have a direct impact on Northerners; the work on regulatory reform by the special negotiator named by a Minister in Ottawa. Those things are ongoing today and will affect land claims as they are written. We are working on a process together to say, let’s go hand in hand, arm...