Floyd Roland

Mr. Speaker, the legislation is clear. Under advisement of the Cabinet, the Minister can pose a question to the Supreme Court. This is not challenging aboriginal leadership in the Northwest Territories. This is going to provide final clarification on who has authority. That is not taken lightly, because when you have your own Members of the Legislative Assembly raising issue of whose authority, that definitely needs to be cleared up. So we have provided that avenue. The courts have their own process now which will seek input from all of the people that they feel is necessary across the...

Mr. Speaker, as the Government of the Northwest Territories has quite a number of programs through our Minister’s responsibility under ITI, we do a number of things, whether it is through the Business Incentive Policy, so we have contractors in the North taking advantage of the work that we have available as the Government of the Northwest Territories. Our SEED program, for example, that we put in place to help businesses in our smaller communities. So we have done quite a number of things to enhance businesses in the North. We know we need to do a better job.

The other things we have tried to...

Mr. Speaker, the initial report that came out that was presented did show there was a balancing of, for example, corporate costs, the headquarter costs across the board. So there would be some redistribution there. There was some impact on hydro communities as well. That was what was presented.

Since our initial discussions with Members of the Assembly, we’ve looked at other ways of mitigating those costs and bringing forward a process that would lessen the impact on any community of any increases and try to come up with lowering the cost overall and stabilizing those costs. So I would say that...

Mr. Speaker, my understanding, again, through the rate review that’s been ongoing, the cost of service versus a rate of return is one of the areas that has been discussed and some recommendations made around when you look at the different zones that are being contemplated in that report. So that is an area of looking at cost of services versus rate of return. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we’ve heard from Members, we’ve heard from the leadership across the Northwest Territories, the people, caribou is a way of life for many across the Northwest Territories and our neighbouring territories in the Yukon and Nunavut. It is so important, in fact, Mr. Speaker, that when the issue of the decline in caribou populations across the Northwest Territories arose, the government-of-the-day started investing money into doing a count, and a re-count, and another count. In those senses, the cumulative amount of money we’ve put on the table as a Government of the...

The motions that are passed, whether it is by the Dene Nation or the regional leadership or the specific regional government that brings forward initiatives that we sit down and respond to those motions. We have agreements in place. For example, through the co-management boards, through the settled areas, whether it’s the Inuvialuit, the Gwich’in, the Sahtu, and through the self-government process of the Tlicho. In the unsettled areas there was a number of discussions held. There were meetings, as well, around this issue as well as at the larger meetings at the Dene Nation itself talking about...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The process that we use at Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations when we become aware of these motions is we work with the appropriate departments to see their responses and how they would respond and work with the First Nations government or the Metis or the Inuvialuit, for example. There’s a process that is involved that we bring forward and work with them to try and work with the groups when it comes to the motion. In fact, in this particular case the Wekeezhii process is in place. Part of the Tlicho Self-Government Agreement that we work with and, as...

Mr. Speaker, it’s our responsibility as a government to make sure we work with the partners in the Northwest Territories. In fact, the list of meetings the Member has shows our commitment to work with the aboriginal membership across the Northwest Territories, whether it is around water, land, caribou, the many examples that we’ve worked in partnership developing either legislation or implementation plans about how we can serve and regulate the use of wildlife in the Northwest Territories. So we continue to do that.

As for seeking my opinion about what would qualify as satisfactory engagement...

As a result of the motion and motions prior to that, in fact as early as 2007, the importance of caribou was raised that we as a government from those motions worked with the First Nations aboriginal governments to come up with, number one, the accounts that were in dispute initially. We worked with them to get that information together using traditional knowledge and modern science and supported them with resources to help do the accounts. As well, that then set in place the initiatives that were undertaken by governments by reducing some of the earliest, when it came to tags or else those...

Mr. Speaker, I wish to advise Members that the Honourable Bob McLeod will be absent from the House today to attend promotional events related to the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, Thank you, Mr. Speaker.