Floyd Roland

In fact, through this process we have looked closely at the Yukon agreement and that process, and have ensured and worked at the table with the aboriginal governments and representatives on ensuring that this process we’re involved with to a much greater extent involves aboriginal governments in the future of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The letter has been received and we felt we were going to address that through our regional leaders meetings and some side meetings that we’d have there. With the recent release that has come out, we will put it instead in a formal response back to the president of the Gwich’in Tribal Council.

The draft AIP that’s been sent out to the aboriginal governments and organizations for their input has been done because the mandates of the chief negotiators have breached. It is up to the governments to decide what the next steps are and we’re in that process of making those decisions, waiting for the input of the aboriginal organizations and governments for their response to the chief negotiators’ letters. We’ll have to decide what the process is going forward from there, and when it comes to some of the issues that I believe are outstanding are ones that I believe would be identified...

The process that we’ve gone down, in fact, on the basis of the AIP started off fundamentally in 2001, has worked through, in fact, in the 15th Assembly, four groups signed on with the government-of-the-day to forward that draft on to Canada and the Sahtu was included in that signing at that time. We, in the 16th Assembly, had halted the process to start the regional leaders table to try to build a more common approach, and when the re-engagement happened with the federal government, there was a number of technical sessions and negotiations that were involved at the regional level process and...

The work that we have done and we’re at now, we’ll be facing a decision as the 16th Legislative Assembly whether we go to the next level of negotiations. As pointed out, even the language that’s there before protects the aboriginal rights, and it’s our role as a public government to ensure that the rights of the public as a whole of the Northwest Territories are also represented.

It’s been through the many years that this work has been done and we count on the input of Members who are representatives of the many constituencies across the North to voice their input, as we do commonly practice in...

The aboriginal representatives received a draft AIP in September. They at that point were hoping and I’m sure that they’ve had their discussions or are in the process of having their discussions with their elected representatives of their representative organizations and will be able to respond back. We’re awaiting that response. We’re trying to honour, much like at the regional leaders table, the role of governments and have that interaction government to government as we have been told so many times. We’re awaiting the regional organizations’ responses to the letter that’s been sent to them.

We’ll be able to document the fact that we’ve had all groups at the table through the process up until April. That’s when the Gwich’in decided to pull out from those discussions.

Throughout this whole process -- and the Member talked about this -- this has been ongoing for a number of Assemblies. In fact, as I stated, half of my lifetime we’ve talked about devolution and resource revenue sharing or the Northern Accord in trying to move those authorities to the North. So there has been inclusion at all levels in the Northwest Territories, including aboriginal leaders and negotiators at quite a number of tables. In fact, if you look, we work with the claims that are in place and that are protected and we continue to honour that protection. When you look at the Tlicho...

Thank you. One of the things I’ve realized is that the bigger the group gets, the longer it takes the process and decisions. What I will say is that I’m prepared to discuss with the Executive to see how this working group can do its work along with the advisors on this and see how that can function, or how we can improve that relationship. But as the Member has stated, one, to see something come forward in the lifetime of this Assembly and one of the things we have to realize is it’s one thing to establish a working group or come up with a strategy, it’s another thing that we have to come up...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Deh Cho, that Bill 12, An Act to Amend the Liquor Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.