Joe Handley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, the Norman Wells oilfield issue of where the royalties are going to be paid, whether they should be paid at all and so on, how we treat the federal ownership, is one of the six issues that are outstanding. Mr. Speaker, I won't get into all of them, but in the last meeting of the leaders I outlined that we, as a territorial government, wanted to come to an agreement with the federal government. The aboriginal leaders' negotiator in the summer of 2005 had said this is not an issue for the aboriginal leaders, it's only between the GNWT and the federal government...

Mr. Speaker, I have consistently said that I believe that we can achieve an agreement-in-principle within four months. Whether it’s the end of February, end of March, I don’t know. But somewhere before our new fiscal year we need to know where we stand financially. My reason for choosing that is we’re starting a new fiscal year with a situation that I said in my sessional statement that is just not sustainable. We cannot keep up with the needs with the current amount of money that we have.

Mr. Speaker, I believe four months is lots of time for the federal negotiator Harvie Andre to get up to...

Mr. Speaker, I will give that assurance but, at the same time, I want to discuss this further with the officials in ENR. But I don’t know of any reason why we would not be able to achieve what the Member is requesting. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don’t have a calculation and I’ll have to take that as notice and provide the Member with a written response on that. Sorry. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not sure all of the reasons for the delay. I want to first congratulate Lutselk’e on the protected area and the MOU that was recently signed. In terms of delay, I am not sure of all of the reasons for it, Mr. Speaker. I can tell you, though, that there is a workshop being held in November of this year to work on some of the issues, to look at survey results and also to work with the people involved on a management plan for that caribou herd. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said earlier, I’ve spent more time and energy on this issue than any other one. In terms of getting us out there on the national stage, we have done everything we can and I can tell you we’ve had more coverage in this government in national media than any other government. Mr. Speaker, that’s been important. We’ve done that along with aboriginal leaders. I have worked very closely with the aboriginal national leaders. I was the first Premier to bring the national aboriginal leaders into the Premiers' meetings when we met in Inuvik, and that’s continued on and they...

Mr. Speaker, I met with every single regional leader in the same room several times. The most recent time was in Norman Wells in about April. At that time, in fact, I met with the leaders and with Minister Prentice in the room as well. Mr. Speaker, we have had several of those meetings. In terms of all of the leaders, chiefs, mayors and everybody we tried; we never got everybody together, but regional leadership, yes. We have met with them several times. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I have said we’re close, we’re moving in the right direction on several occasions. Mr. Speaker, during the past three years of our government’s life we’ve had to go through two federal elections, a number of band elections and so on. But the federal elections in particular tend to throw us off schedule. So we’ve had two of them and we may in fact have a third one before our government has completed its agenda. So those certainly slow us down.

Mr. Speaker, I think we’re closer.

---Laughter

I can tell you right now that the Prime Minister, this Prime Minister, has...

Mr. Speaker, I don’t know which one is the main one, but I tell you, us not working together is one for sure. We need to work together. You put your finger on that one today. A second one is a real infrequence by the bureaucracy in Ottawa who just don’t get it. They want to treat us as if we are a colony out there. Mr. Speaker, I think those are the two main things that are stopping us. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I think the first essential piece we need is for all northern leaders to work together on this and recognize this as being the most important topic we can deal with. Mr. Speaker, there is a meeting of the Aboriginal Summit leaders on November 9th and that is a critical meeting. Following that I intend to, I hope the leaders are able to come to agreement on what their agenda is, who the membership is, and so on. Then I intend to meet with them and I’ve made that known to the leaders already.

Second, Mr. Speaker, with aboriginal leaders it’s not all the aboriginal leaders who see...