Joe Handley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is a decision of the Legislative Assembly, not a decision of our government. So it would be up to all of us to make that decision. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I would have to look at the implementation agreement with the land claim agreement to be specific in terms of our obligations on that side. But if those were built into the implementation plan, then we certainly want to honour that. In the meantime though, Mr. Speaker, we will work with people in all regions where there is economic activity to help them to be able to identify what the opportunities are, what the potential is, and we are doing that in some specific cases. For example, our government, through the Power Corporation, invested a fair bit of money helping on the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's true that the Wildlife Act has been under review for a long time, and we're continuing to work on it. The Minister of RWED is the lead Minister on this and I know it's his intention to complete the draft of the act by the end of this year, as well as the Species at Risk Act. The latest delay has been because of requested consultation by some of the land claim beneficiaries in the various regions of the Territories. We expect to have that done this year.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I will raise it with the Aboriginal Summit when we have the opportunity to have both sides meet at negotiations. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In principle, I certainly agree with the notion of setting up a trust fund or a heritage fund or something that ensures that the wealth we have in a particular year or years can benefit future generations. In order to have the ability to contribute to a trust fund, we have to have the dollars to put into it. I hope that within the life of this government that we are there, that we have settled devolution and resource revenue sharing and we are in a position where we can have our NWT trust fund or heritage fund. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Like the honourable Member, I was also very pleased with what moved, the attitude, the commitments that were made around the table this morning in the Intergovernmental Forum meeting. I think it was an excellent beginning. I am really pleased that the federal government has now signed on to the framework agreement. I think those are all good things that mean we are making significant progress here.

Mr. Speaker, I intend, as Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, to ensure that we will always be proud to have the Auditor General or anybody else come and look at the steps we...

Mr. Speaker, we have policies, we follow the policies, but we don't follow every policy in every possible situation. There are times when it is necessary to make exceptions. If a Minister wants to make an exception to a policy, then that has to be brought to the government. In the case that the Member for Hay River North is referring to, it was a situation where we have been under pressure to provide affordable housing in the communities. In the previous government this was discussed; it was discussed at great length. There were Members on the other side and this side who said we could...

Mr. Speaker, the direction given to Cabinet Ministers is what is in the current policies, that we follow the policies. Where there are exceptions made, then those have to come to Cabinet for Cabinet approval. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I would be pleased to provide the Members with a list or a description of the mandate of the Mackenzie Valley planning group in RWED, in terms of the mandate that they have. There may be other areas that we would want to consider as a government for providing further assistance. There are certainly other parts of our government that provide assistance, through Education, MACA and other areas. So there are a lot of services that we provide to those who are interested in economic opportunities, including the pipeline but not limited to the pipeline.

Mr. Speaker, I think the best...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just for further clarification, the three things that I mentioned weren't meant as a comprehensive list of everything we were going to do. I think there are a lot of areas where we assist communities, whether it's in economic development or training, contracting, value-added benefits. There are a whole bunch. I didn't list them all. I was answering the question which was asked specifically with regard to impact benefit agreements and access agreements. Those are things that would flow out of the claims and so on. So those are issues that we have not historically...