Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can’t talk about what the result was or decisions made. All I can put out is the fact that in 2007 the Government of the Northwest Territories, along with four partners, signed an agreement, sent it in to Ottawa, and in fact I would say that the agreement that is before us today has improved upon that deal. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, it is disappointing to have the media jump on this before we’ve had an opportunity as governments that are directly involved to allow the process to flow. We are in a process where we have to evaluate how we now inform the public, but again I go back to the fact that this agreement-in-principle is a starting point if we decide it needs to go forward. It is a starting point to a series of negotiations that then we will be able to get out to the public and let them know what is on the table and what we’re trying to do on that process. In the meantime, I’ve...

Mr. Speaker, the Member, having experience as a chief negotiator quite involved in the land claims process within the Northwest Territories in his past life, is quite familiar. Once the chief negotiators initialled off and sent it to the parties for decision, that document is then decided upon as it goes forward from that draft agreement-in-principle towards a formal set of negotiations. That incorporates a whole new level of talks and all the players at the table as full partners. This joint letter that has gone out has invited the groups to be a part of our table and be full partners. This...

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...

Mr. Speaker, I will get the information necessary to show the parameters of that project, what it means, the idea. That is why this government is putting capital funds in place to help offset that initial cost. We will get the additional information and provide it to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The issue of the wind turbines is one that we’ve been watching as the discussions have been ongoing about purchasing power back through to the Power Corporation. We will continue to monitor that. If the requirement is if there’s call about providing additional information, we will commit to doing that and see what we can do to help have all the appropriate information so that the community can make the right decision. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I couldn’t agree more with what the Member just stated about creating a sustainable economic environment in our communities and trying to provide the necessary tools to allow that to happen.

Just the other day, Minister Bob McLeod had responded to some of the initiatives that we are undertaking in our smaller communities through his department to establish subsidiaries. For example, that would bring jobs to the community and maintain some of those jobs. The support we give through a number of other departments, for example, on the traditional harvesting side of the equation and the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The sustainability of our communities is an important initiative. One of the parts of our vision and goals of the 16th Legislative Assembly is to try to create an environment of sustainability. So there are a number of factors that we have engaged with during the life of this government and one of them is going to be the Electricity Rate Review and the adjustments to our delivery of electricity. The other is in the area of the economic side, under the Minister of ITI, has been, for example, the SEED program, the agricultural program, investments being made in that area...

Early on in our discussions at the regional leaders table, the idea of a constitution was brought up because the Dene Nation has raised it as one of their efforts. The regional leaders felt that we needed to work on some of our own issues first, and then a constitution would be the overarching piece. As well, when we look at our own history in the Northwest Territories, following the Bourque Report, there was the Constitutional Development Steering Committee that did its work through the 12th and into the 13th Assembly -- I believe those were the dates -- and then the Constitutional Working...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The work that was done at the Trappers Lodge with prominent past leaders and people involved in aboriginal negotiations and self-government discussions did invite myself and Mr. Miltenberger to drop by for a brief discussion. They pointed out the work they had done together and they were going to submit that report. We haven’t received it. I have put it into our system for review, and one of the things I told them is that we would be prepared to sit down with the regional leaders at the end of November to share their work to see what regional leaders would say about...