Joe Handley

Mr. Speaker, first of all let me say that when we balance our grants and our own resource revenues, we expect to have what we have always referred to as a net fiscal benefit. We never want to see a dollar for dollar, otherwise why are we doing this. Mr. Speaker, on the other one, on the report, yes, I believe the federal government is not getting the fiscal resources out of our natural resource development. We are not getting what we should and I saw the same report, I know we are getting much, much less than some of the Scandinavian countries, for example. Mr. Speaker, that’s the federal...

Mr. Speaker, as one party to the plan, we have been working hard to stick to the plan and move ahead with it, but I cannot speak for the other two parties on this one, the aboriginal leaders and the federal government. We want to move ahead as quickly as we can on this and will do everything we can. Mr. Speaker, we have to understand that we are not in control of it ourselves. We have two other parties we have to work with. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we only have a formal negotiating table for the main devolution agreement. The concept, the idea, the proposal of interim resource revenue sharing is not at a table right now. We continue to negotiate devolution. The next meeting is October 26th to 28th, so we are still talking devolution. Mr. Speaker, I have been discouraged by this slow pace since when the Aboriginal Summit wanted to get a new negotiator. We did. We had an election and change of Ministers of DIAND since then, a change of Ministers of Finance. Things have slowed us down to the point where I am not...

Mr. Speaker, when I go to Ottawa this week, I will definitely raise that with our MP, the Minister of Northern Development. I will also raise it with the Prime Minister and the other federal Ministers that we meet with. Further, I will certainly clarify the unanimous words of support that we heard today from the MLAs. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, in my discussions with the aboriginal leaders a few weeks ago, I did propose to them that we need to have representatives from here and aboriginal leaders meet in Ottawa together with some of the key Ministers. I had hoped we would be able to do that by the end of October, but things have slipped. I still hope that we can do it this fall. I am not sure what everybody’s schedules are, but, I agree, we need to be there. We need to be there in enough numbers that the message is clear that we stand together on this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I don’t have the exact day with me, but about three weeks ago I had a teleconference call with the northern leaders. They were generally in agreement with some of our discussions on interim resource revenue sharing. They were to have a meeting last week, but because of illness of one of the members they felt they were going to postpone that for a while. I expect to have another discussion with them soon. When I go to Ottawa this week I have been asked to meet with some of the key Ministers late on Tuesday afternoon to further some of the discussion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, as recently as this morning I raised that issue with our MP and only to float the idea with her that we have to have some benefit from resources. I’ve also talked to the Prime Minister about that, as well, saying look, one of our mines is half way through its life. We still haven’t done anything here. So yes, I have raised that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to say first that Cabinet will be voting in support of this motion.

---Applause

We do appreciate very much the strong support that the Members have taken for the position that has been put forward in this motion.

Mr. Speaker, this pipeline project is the biggest project in recent Canadian history and its happening in our territory. We can’t sit back and just be happy that we’ve got the biggest project and be satisfied with that. I agree with the Members and with northerners, if not all northerners, that we also have to have a fair resource revenue...

Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct; we had a process in the last government and that process is continuing. I have talked to the Minister of DIAND, Minister Scott, about the Aboriginal Summit, about the Intergovernmental Forum, and he has confirmed to me that he wants to continue with those same discussions. The previous Minister of DIAND did appoint David Peterson to negotiate devolution, but he didn’t give them a mandate to negotiate resource revenue sharing. That mandate stayed with Finance Canada.

I am frustrated with Finance Canada because it’s been since the fall of 2003 that we gave them...

Mr. Speaker, that is a very complex question and I don’t know, I don’t have the information in front of me of how much we have spent as a government or how much has been spent by others preparing for the pipeline. I can tell you that it is in the hundreds of millions of dollars, particularly by industry. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.