Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the election process there were a lot of questions in terms of the timeliness and concerns regarding devolution. My question is to the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations. Can the Minister give us an update in terms of the progress of the devolution negotiations?
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we started out in this Caucus reaching out to Aboriginal governments to develop a better working relationship in order to find common ground on a number of issues including devolution, we are still engaged in that process and looking to have another follow-up meeting to Detah sometime early in the new year.
With regard to actual devolution negotiations, the Government of Canada just recently announced or appointed a new federal negotiator for devolution and we’re in the process of feeling him out. I think there are some official meetings that will be happening sometime soon; if not, early in the new year.
I just wanted to see if the Minister could provide perhaps just a vision in terms of where he sees this relationship building with First Nations going.
Right now in our discussions with the Aboriginal governments we’ve had a wide spectrum of points of view as to how we could proceed or try to find common ground on devolution. My expectation is that sometime soon, before we have a follow-up meeting to Detah, that we would be putting forward some government position as to how we can try to find a way forward.
I just wanted to ask maybe my final question to see if perhaps there will be some form of a forum. I understand there will be perhaps another forum such as Detah, which was fairly significant. Perhaps the Minister will look at convening another session of a forum that could have a venue of maybe a semblance of perhaps a protocol agreement of some sort with First Nations.
That is our intention. Most of the leaders have indicated that before we have a follow-up session, that we have something tangible that we can discuss. At least one of them has said they weren’t prepared to share their ideas; they prefer to wait and see what the government was proposing. So with regard to some sort of agreement, I guess we see it as something that we could do through Section 6. That offer has always been there where we could work out an arrangement through that section. We’d be quite prepared to pursue that angle as well.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Nadli. Okay. Thank you, colleagues. Item 9, written questions. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I seek unanimous consent to return to item 8, oral questions, on the Order Paper.
---Unanimous consent granted
