Richard Edjericon

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I rise to bring a serious concern before the House. It has been over three months since the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs dissolved the elected Fort Resolution council and then appointed an administrator to oversee the local government.

Mr. Speaker, at this time MACA Minister said that this appointment was a significant step to the hamlet of Fort Resolution towards having a strong and stable community government. But, Mr. Speaker, isn't it ironic that the Minister's actions have done just the opposite? Instead of a stable community government with...

Thank you for that response. I guess my last question would be for the Minister is what does she feel will be the biggest impacts for NWT businesses with the proposed amendments of this bill? Thank you.

Like, again, I know the rebranding portion, you know, I mean, we're changing the housing corporation to Housing NWT. Maybe we could have build ten houses just on that note, all the letterheads and everything else, the cost of doing all that. You know, this can be just a simple fix, you know. All you got to do is where it says BDIC, just put a little polar bear there or something like that. And the other ones BDC, that's a federal organization. Put a Canada flag or something there. But anyway, I guess I'm just wondering, Madam Chair, can you maybe elaborate a little bit more as to how your...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll just keep my comments short. I guess the overall, I've been around for a while here in Aboriginal politics. And, you know, when we keep thinking about the early days of the Northern Accord in 1989, was more or less again another way of transferring a lot of these authorities from Ottawa to the GNWT.

And in 2004, they created the Aboriginal Summit and the Aboriginal Summit, again, was made of all these Aboriginal leaders in the Northwest Territories and trying to work on an arrangement with GNWT. And my colleague, Ron Bonnetrouge here from the Deh Cho, had talked...

Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister also update the House, this House, on the status report on the issue that led Fort Resolution being placed under administration by the Minister and when will the hamlet of Fort Resolution return to the local government by local leaders? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Minister of MACA. Can the Minister provide a reason why the Act hasn't been followed by his appointed administrator in Fort Resolution with respect to public meetings and community engagement? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Chair. As well, I agree with my colleagues as well that, you know, we if we can't have an emergency meeting on this, then to iron out the last details of this, I'm aware of what was being discussed on this bill. So as well, I will not be supporting this motion. Thank you.

Again, speaking to the motion, Madam Chair, I just was talking about communication. You know, when we talk about value at risk, etcetera, I know in our community in Fort Resolution, I was there when we had an intergovernmental agency meeting, and we talked about this. But any other time, you know, communication, again, has to come down to the leadership and shared with them. And I'm a little concerned that, you know, if we have one meeting, we only have one RWED officer there. But it didn't go far enough. There was too many questions. And, again, communication needs to be looked at for sure...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I, too, I have a concern about what happened here, the fire here in the Northwest Territories. During the three and a half weeks in my riding, I listened to a lot of my elders, and the people in the community were talking about in the early days when fires happened they had a fire tower there. People were manned the towers manned by the RWED at the time.

And in those days, when they used to spot a fire, the guys would get on it right away. And they put out the fire. And they do it whether it would be three or four or five days, but they're on it; it's done, and it doesn...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the early days I was involved as a young councillor for YKDFN and impact benefit agreements with our community now, also with resource development agreements in our communities as well. So I've been involved with working with BHP, Diavik, and De Beers, and now we're getting to the point where these mines are going into reclamation. And so having said that, you know, our communities really are really in need of, you know, new mines to come up and to, you know, look for work for our young people in our community. And, you know, I was pleased today to talk...