Joe Handley

Mr. Speaker, yes. Last week we met with representatives from Nunavut and the Yukon, as well as with the federal officials. So there have been some discussions there. Mr. Speaker, our government will most likely be using Melody Morrison, who works in our Ottawa office, as a lead on this at the officials’ level. I am not sure who the other territories will use. We also, Mr. Speaker, want to make sure we understand what we are doing here with the federal government. We also need to begin to talk with some of the other stakeholders in the North, including the aboriginal governments. We haven’t...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is a question I believe should be more appropriately directed to the Minister of RWED. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Chairman, my view would be that we would have one final devolution, final resource revenue sharing arrangement for the whole Northwest Territories that all aboriginal governments would sign on to along with us and the federal government. Then depending on the specific nature of their land claim or aboriginal rights claim, then there would be different arrangements, particularly on the resource revenue sharing side. Because we have to respect each of the claims and if they’re not identical, then we need to have a different one for the Inuvialuit, the Gwich’in, the Sahtu and someday the...

Mr. Speaker, the supply of those turbines was done after looking at a number of models and, in fact, several visits to the plant and the office; I can’t remember if it was in Calgary or Edmonton. This was a joint project done with the Town of Inuvik. Mr. Speaker, that’s some time ago and I don’t know the nature of the warranty on it although, as I recall, there were a number of visits by the people who provided those gas turbines. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Madam Chair, I can assure the Members that we are not at all going to try to negotiate devolution between the federal government and the territorial government. We will not go there. What we have done in going back to the last government is worked very closely with the Aboriginal Summit as the representative body or the body that represents the aboriginal leadership and try to work with the Aboriginal Summit and our government to negotiate a plan for how devolution would work. That has cost us a lot of time and money and the same with the aboriginal leadership.

Those who don’t have settled...

Mr. Speaker, my information is that the three parties -- the Sahtu, GNWT and Government of Canada -- are planning on meeting November 16th to 18th in Inuvik and I’m not sure why Inuvik was chosen, but that is where the scheduled meeting is, I believe. I intend to be there, if at all possible. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Madam Chair, it’s true that there have been good words said about various strategies over the years like devolution has been around for years and never borne any fruit. The biggest difference on this one, in my view, is the engagement of the Prime Minister himself. When we talked about the strategy, he brought in the key Ministers. We talked about it and he directed his officials to get to work. This was in the afternoon and he directed that they be meeting the next day on it, starting to work out some of the detail.

The presentation that we made to the federal government included a set of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am pleased, as well, to recognize my brother-in-law from the Yukon and welcome him here. Thank you.

---Applause

Madam Chair, yes, I will certainly be respectful of the rights and aspirations of the aboriginal governments. There’s no intention at all to try to take over or interfere in other people’s rights when it comes to devolution or anything else. But we will work with the aboriginal governments. We made that commitment ourselves.

Having said that, we, as 19 MLAs, represent all of the people of the Territories. Hopefully the thoughts of the people in your constituencies all come back here, and we can debate how far we should go or shouldn’t go on various issues.

On the discussions on territorial...

Madam Chairperson, no, there is no package. It’s just a joint letter from the three Premiers.