Joe Handley

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.

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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...

Mr. Speaker, some of the main principles that our government has been very public on and certainly our principles that underlie what we do in devolution include that we will not somehow abrogate or somehow compromise any aboriginal rights of any groups or their treaty rights. As we negotiate devolution, we will not prejudice any land claims or self-government agreements. Mr. Speaker, as well we have said that aboriginal governments should have a role and responsibilities when devolution is complete. We are not just looking at devolution from federal government to us, but rather we want to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize my constituent, Marie Wilson, and also I don’t know if Dave Grundy is there either, but Dave, as well, is a constituent. Thank you.

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Mr. Speaker, as this particular issue on missile defence becomes clearer in terms of what is being proposed and how it may impact us, then certainly we would be ready and willing to brief this House. In the meantime, I want to focus on ensuring that we are at the table when the federal government moves forward on the proposed northern strategy. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, no, we don’t have a policy on the federal government's programs. Those would be issues outside of our government and not things we would have policies on. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.