Joe Handley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am not going to tie a devolution and resource revenue sharing agreement specifically to the pipeline. But what I am going to tie it to is resource development generally. I don’t think the people up and down the Mackenzie Valley should pay the price. We should all, as northerners, be willing to make that sacrifice if it’s necessary in order to get a better deal and it doesn’t matter whether it’s mining in this area or pipeline or whatever, but let’s make it fair to everybody across the Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, yes, I have several times. I have sat down with all of the leaders and tried to come up with one consensus on agreement. In fact, we have done it through the Circle of Northern Leaders. I think we are the first government to have all of the leaders together, 50 some leaders together around the table, to try to get a consensus. Mr. Speaker, we need everybody to work with us and to recognize and maybe some compromise and so on on everybody’s part to make this work. But we have done it. We have done it on several occasions. I have done it individually. I have done it with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I couldn’t make it to the Dene Assembly meeting in Fort Good Hope last week, but I did meet with the national chief, as I mentioned. I want to build on the mood of partnership and working together that was started at that meeting. As I said, there is a meeting of the Aboriginal Summit leaders on the 9th. Following that I am going to invite, in fact before that happens I will invite all of the leaders to a meeting of the kind that Members referred to here. Just leaders. We don’t need a lot of staff, just ourselves as elected leaders. Mr. Speaker, I hope to do that in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said before, time is of the essence. We need to do this quickly. I want to respect the aboriginal leaders’ request to meet themselves on November 9th first. I want to follow it. I will continue to meet with the national chief, Bill Erasmus, and other leaders. But we need to do this soon. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Let me say that, first of all, there are a lot of good, strong statements made today about needing to work together as northerners. That’s one. I can tell you that at my informational meeting with National Chief Bill Erasmus this week that that was the same discussion of the Dene Nation meeting in Fort Good Hope earlier. So working together is absolutely important. Aboriginal leaders have to work together and we have to work together with aboriginal leaders as northern leaders. So that’s number one.

Mr. Speaker, a second one is we have to agree on an agenda of how we’re...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again I'm not sure I heard a question, but, Mr. Speaker, I want to do that too and, yes, we're not going to be shy to invest money if we feel there is going to be a good return, and this is the highest priority file we have. We've got a short time frame and whatever resources we can muster out there, we need to pick up on. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Certainly, in terms of constitutional reform issues, we want to take our rightful place in the country. We are paying our fair share. We are earning our share through resource revenues and I will entertain doing that. I want to do it with all northerners, whether it is Metis, Dene, Inuvialuit, other people, whoever, all of us together. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I heard two questions. I'll answer the first one, and I apologize if the Member wasn't aware of who our negotiator was. Our negotiator is Hal Gerein. He has been our negotiator going back in the previous government, I believe. He's been there a long time. He's an experienced person who spent many years as a deputy minister in our government and has done an excellent job, in my view, for us.

The second question is how much time in the Ottawa office. They are dealing with all kinds of files there from all the Ministers and so on. But I would estimate that probably...

Mr. Speaker, I didn’t hear a question, but I’d appreciate hearing from the people in the area and, as I said before, we’re ready to help in whatever way we can. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We will do. In fact, we're going to meet following their November 9th meeting, then I want to sit down on all of the six outstanding items and refresh everybody's memory of where we're at with it, why we're holding the positions we do, and then get on with negotiating with the federal government hopefully with the aboriginal leaders' support. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.