Joe Handley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. For starters, 70 percent of our budget of roughly $1 billion is for social programs. I don’t have a breakdown of how much of that goes to the agencies and what their priorities are and how they are going to go about achieving it. I would sure like to share that with them, as much as we have time to do it. I am sure the Ministers of the social programs will be able to give us a lot of detail, as we get into the department estimates, of where that 70 percent of the money is going. We’ve said yes and the Minister of Finance say it goes to social programs and community...

Mr. Speaker, I have been very clear on that all along and I will say it again: We cannot tolerate having zero royalties stay with this government and stay with northern people. We have to have an agreement and we have to have an agreement before the pipeline proceeds. That’s the bottom line for our government and we haven’t changed our position. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, no, we are not ready today for the pipeline. We’ve got a lot of work to do over the next 18 months/two years, however long. We’ve got a lot to do. I think it’s incumbent on all of us here and leaders outside of this Chamber, municipal leaders, aboriginal leaders, federal government, for all of us to work together to get ready. We have a short time frame. We need to get ready but, to answer the question, I would agree we are not ready today. At the same time, if someone had asked the Tlicho if they were ready to sign their agreement six months ago, they would have said no, we are...

Mr. Speaker, every year the National Aboriginal Achievement Foundation recognizes excellence and leadership in our country's aboriginal community by awarding National Achievement Awards.

Today, I am honoured to recognize and congratulate three residents of our territory who have been chosen to receive this prestigious award in 2005.

First, Ms. Bertha Allen of Inuvik, who is being honoured with a Lifetime Achievement Award.

---Applause

In her former roles as the president of the Advisory Council on the Status of Women, the founding president of the NWT Native Women's Association and the president...

Mr. Speaker, as I said earlier, there is a lot of work to be done over the next 18 months or two years by one of the review committees, on socioeconomic benefits, environmental or technical issues, before a recommendation is made to the federal government to approve or not approve this pipeline. We have a lot of work to do. I think a lot of this work has to happen at the same time. We don’t want to slow down the pipeline. The gas is needed in the South. We need the revenues. We need the economic activity. We don’t want industry to turn somewhere else, to Alaska, as an alternative, and leave...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think you will find that we are coming to the aid of the communities and the social agencies in a big way. Seventy percent of $1 billion is a lot of money. How does that money get allocated? How is it spent? Those are things that have to be worked out with communities, with the NGOs, the social agencies. My appeal to all of the agencies and programs that work in this is we have to work together on it. We can’t sit back and criticize each other and say we aren’t going to do anything because we haven’t got enough money. We have to take the resources we have and move...

Yes, Mr. Speaker, we have a lot of work ahead of us in the next 18 months or so to get ready for the pipeline. I am confident that we will be there. I want to clarify it’s not just about money either. We have got environmental issues that have to be sorted out. We have training issues. We have social issues, but we have to work together to achieve that. Mr. Speaker, the issue of trust is a good question because we have to work with each other, all of us in government at all levels, NGOs, everybody, towards achieving what’s best for our people, and this pipeline presents a great opportunity.

I...

Mr. Speaker, our government has always been clear with the federal government that we must have a resource revenue sharing agreement in place before the pipeline is completed. Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister, on December 14th when we signed the framework for the Northern Strategy, committed publicly to make substantial progress in the near future on resource revenue sharing and devolution. He committed to having an agreement-in-principle done and signed this spring and I want to hold him to that. He committed to finishing off the negotiations on devolution and resource revenue sharing by 2006...

Mr. Speaker, again, it’s up to the boards to do the hiring. We do have a program of incentives. The Department of Education is reviewing those incentives. We would prefer to do it, as the Member calls it, with a carrot rather than with a stick. If we force boards to hire individuals, it is not likely going to be a very happy relationship either for the board or for the individual involved. We don’t want to put people in those kinds of situations. We are sure our people are good teachers, they’ve graduated and we provide incentives that are appropriate to hopefully encourage the boards to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This has been a concern of the department for some time because we do invest in northern people to train as teachers. They graduate and in some cases are not easily able to obtain jobs.

We have always made it known to the boards who the graduates are and how they can be contacted. So that’s there. We do not do the hiring; it’s up to each of the boards. We have a program in place to provide incentives if northerners are hired. As I understand, the Department of Education is now reviewing that program to increase the incentives. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.