Floyd Roland

The caps that are talked about at times, if you look at, again, I go back to the scenario of a homeowner in the Northwest Territories, the fact that if we look at that house we want to buy and we know it’s not going to fit our needs, we’re going to have to make some changes. Now, that unit, as it stood, may have a dollar figure attached, but if we’re going to expand it, build on it and strengthen it, we’re going to go to the bank, or in this case the federal government, to say we believe it should be done this way. In fact, this AIP identifies that and has gone a long way to reducing the caps...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The AIP spells out the involvement of the GNWT and the federal government. It also incorporates a forward-going involvement of aboriginal governments in the process. Through discussions with the leaders at the table, it was felt that they would have that opportunity to join on, but if they were to sign a document side by side and they may have some disputes on some of it or their claims processes, there was some unease there. But what is in place is a government-to-government relationship and a bilateral process government to government with the GNWT, and the door is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess one way of looking at this as we talk about what the possibility is, the potential, right now an agreement-in-principle is a base document to begin serious negotiations on what authorities would be drawn from Ottawa, and it’s, if I can, to try to compare it to what we would do, I’ll use the house scenario, for example. Many potential homeowners, as you buy a new house or upgrade, you find you need to do some renovations and make some changes, but you can’t do that until you actually buy the house. In a sense, we’re negotiating this fixed piece of work and...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am trying to figure out where that comes from in the sense that the process we are involved in, if we do agree to sign an agreement-in-principle, then we would begin a process of the final settled negotiations, and those negotiations are the questions about what the transition needs to be.

The AIP spells out a timeline right now for the existing structures. We would have to design with our partners, aboriginal governments, how we would then put our stamp and make it a northern process for ourselves. That work would be started as we begin the final set of negotiations...

Mr. Speaker, why is it so important that we proceed at this time? Well, I think there’s a long history of talking about development and grabbing the authority from Ottawa and bring it to the North, and sharing the powers amongst northern governments has been discussed for decades and we’ve come to a place now where, in fact, as I was speaking earlier today, this is not the first occasion that the Government of the Northwest Territories faced a situation of making a decision if we go forward or not. In fact, the 15th Assembly was in a very similar place and had a number of the groups sign on...

As I stated earlier, we have opened the doors to a continued working relationship on this file along with other files where we have continued and shown we’re working in partnership. The Wildlife Act, the Species at Risk Act, the land use plans, the Water Strategy. We’ve had teams going out throughout the Territories and regions to get input and work with us on developing these strategies. This file is the same thing. At the regional leaders table, their technical staff, their lawyers, their negotiators have been part of the process and are welcome to continue to be a part of the process. In...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I must say that I did not hear that interview, at least this morning when I was having my coffee, otherwise I might have burned myself, I guess, in the surprise that a former Premier would wade back into the political arena. I didn’t know that the federal campaign for the Western Arctic had started yet, but maybe that’s the case and he’s priming for that or something. Simply the facts that were there, I guess that’s the danger that we all face. When we leave this place our memories tend to lapse a bit.

The fact is the previous government put in place and signed off an...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll have to disagree with the Member, and strongly disagree. The fact is we’ve set up the regional leaders table and the regional leaders come to the table, bring the agenda items to the table, and at their request keep it as an agenda item moving forward. The fact is, and if you want to get out and start to put this out there... And this is the danger, Mr. Speaker, that the Member knows, as I have informed him the other day that, yes, Inuvik is my constituency and that tribal office is in my constituency. I, in fact, during the summer went in there and tried to have...

As I said, I’ll provide that claim process as well as get the update on the impact of the outage and the resulting overvoltage situation. I will provide that. The corporation holds an insurance package that allows for this to be dealt with in that manner as well.

We will consider what can be done and if that is one of the better ways of clearing the air or if we just continue to respect the process and honour that.