Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I probably can give a much better answer after we have our March Northern Leaders’ Forum where this item will come up for discussion and we try to find a common process going forward, but I’ll get a note done for all Members to where it sits today. Thank you.

This budget itself doesn’t represent an increase for core funding. As it is, it’s a small amount, the Member is correct, when it comes to operations in any community in the Northwest Territories. Again, this is an example of how we do things different as the federal government doesn’t have any core funding for Metis, which they do for bands across this country.

I would be prepared, if Members of this Assembly want to take a serious look at this level for the next business planning cycle. If Members are interested in this area, I would be prepared to sit down with Members to see if we can...

I just told the Member there is no veto in place but our way of working together is being inclusive, much like this Assembly, and work together on coming up with a common position. It doesn’t mean we all have to agree on initiatives undertaken and so on, but there is no established veto for a group. But as we found out and history shows, things move much slower when there are opposing views put on the table. To the federal table, for example, on initiatives that may be undertaken, so the Northern Leaders’ Forum is a way of coming up with a common position and approach to how we would try to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have a number of contracting methods as the Government of the Northwest Territories -- sole-sourcing is one of them, negotiated contracts, RFP, public tender -- and we use all of those in a range of accessing services, whether it was with past employees of the Government of the Northwest Territories. We don’t give a specific direction and each department has these ways of seeking whether it’s a sole-source or a tender process. But departments have that initiative that they can use. When they come forward to request exemption is when we would deal with it...

We work with departments on this where we do get information with potential estimates and we share that with groups involved and, again, there are different levels here. For example, where a land claim is established and a park is a part of that, we hope to have all the information on the table for the decision-makers to make a decision considering long-term benefits to that, whether it’s establishment of a park or establishment of mineral potential that’s there or oil and gas potential. We need to make sure we get that information to them and we would work with the Department of ITI, for...

The issue is that if we come up with a number, we couldn’t commit them to it, we would have to sit down and that is one of the areas why this hasn’t been identified to a larger amount. It could go into the millions of dollars. In the past it has been one-third/two-thirds, in a sense. We had one-third, they had two-thirds, but this is an equal amount now. The reason it is smaller is because we are just, again, re-engaging and we would have to work out an agreement with the federal government as to how much could be done and then we would have to come back and account for it in the manner I just...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Yakeleya has covered a number of significant areas that we’re involved with as the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations. Our role is to be involved from the GNWT side to ensure that we promote the best practices as the Government of the Northwest Territories in a number of areas. The Member has touched on, as I said, a number of key ones.

Political development, as we go through, is one of those key pieces of how we go forward as the 16th Legislative Assembly, and working with our partners in the Northwest Territories. We’ve...

Mr. Chairman, in the past the devolution/resource sharing agreement was signed by the previous Government of the Northwest Territories and a number of the groups. We did not get official response on that agreement that was sent to Ottawa. Since then, this government has taken an approach where we’re inclusive of all groups and we have agreed to work out a process for ourselves here in the Northwest Territories and that process is underway, as I explained earlier, under Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations. I would say, again, there’s competing interests at times of, again, the...

This government has made huge investments in looking at alternative energies, that being some of the biggest cost drivers. When we looked at the overall impacts, two factors come to the forefront around the cost of living and that is transportation and energy costs. So we’re looking at expanding, for example, hydroelectricity to smaller hydro potential initiatives in our communities. So we’re pursuing that. We’re looking at wind energy. We’re looking at a number of other factors; biomass. But those are yet to come and have the potential to reduce the cost of living or stabilize it in our...

The self-government financing piece is an example of how we’ve worked together with the aboriginal governments and negotiators. We’ve worked with every table and given them the information around that self-government financing piece, but it is still a difficulty in getting it to a successful conclusion because the partner that would come to the table... Well, let’s use the example since we’re talking about aboriginal issues, bring to the potluck with a potlatch would require the federal government to bring their end of this bargain and that is still an area up for final conclusion, I guess we...