Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is to the Premier in regards to my Member’s statement on the amount of resources that are coming out of the Northwest Territories. In particular, I made mention of the Sahtu oil and gas minerals of $500 million leaving every year from Norman Wells to Zama and the state of the people living in the Sahtu, in terms of the poverty issue. I want to ask the Premier about giving hope to the people in the Sahtu and the people of the Northwest Territories having a sense that our resources here in the Northwest Territories are going to stay here in the Northwest Territories rather than go it to the Government of Canada in terms of getting a grant. After everything is said and done, they give us a grant to say, here, continue on living. But it seems like someone is being better than our own rich Territory. I want to ask the Premier in terms of his discussions with the leaders in terms of going forward in terms of seeing that there is a resource revenue sharing deal at hand here.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The area of resource revenues in the Northwest Territories has been ongoing for over a couple of decades now. At one point, I believe before it became resource revenues, it was called a Northern Accord of one nature. So it is something that we continue to work on. In fact, at the regional leaders’ table, we have addressed it a number of ways. For example, we now had meetings with almost every regional group and government around that, where the old discussions were left at, at the 15th Assembly, with the federal government wanting to re-engage. We are going to see how we would re-engage the northern group from the Northwest Territories and hopefully be able to look at trying to bring an AIP before the end of our term. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, has the Premier had any discussions with the federal government in terms of, for example, just even the discussion with the Norman Wells oilfield? The Norman Wells oilfield portion of percentage is owned by the federal government in terms of making this issue a priority with the federal government in terms of keeping our resource revenue in the Northwest Territories rather than every year we hand a cheque over to the federal government. Later on they give us another cheque, an income support cheque to keep us busy here. Has the Premier had any type of creative solutions in terms of keeping our resources here in the North?
Mr. Speaker, as the Government of the Northwest Territories has quite a number of programs through our Minister’s responsibility under ITI, we do a number of things, whether it is through the Business Incentive Policy, so we have contractors in the North taking advantage of the work that we have available as the Government of the Northwest Territories. Our SEED program, for example, that we put in place to help businesses in our smaller communities. So we have done quite a number of things to enhance businesses in the North. We know we need to do a better job.
The other things we have tried to do, for example, is when we have socio-economic agreements in place, to again give preference to hiring in the North, not only hiring of employees but the contractors as well, as we know that we have tried to help when it comes to groups looking at IBAs, as we call them, or impact benefit agreements as well.
The other thing we have in place, Mr. Speaker, is an approach that I took with the Prime Minister, specifically with Norman Wells and the oilfields. That was to look at trying to recoup some of those dollars that go to the federal government under an equity program, and reinvest those dollars in the North in infrastructure. That would see us expand on our critical infrastructure needs in the Northwest Territories. We have had a commitment to have discussions on that, but there has been no further movement in that area. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, with the sunsetting of funding with the Department of Health with millions of dollars that are not going to be renewed with the federal government, the federal government is also increasing our funding for social housing in the Northwest Territories. There are other programs that the federal government is going to be cutting back in the Northwest Territories. I want to ask the Premier in terms of raising the level of this issue, the urgency of this issue in terms of our revenue leaving the Northwest Territories every second of this day here. How do we get the attention of the federal government with all the people of the Northwest Territories saying that this is a serious issue and it is not acceptable in this day and age? How can the Premier get our leaders to rally behind him to take this strong message to Ottawa?
Mr. Speaker, I believe the approach that we have undertaken with regional leaders is to have them work with us presenting a northern package on resource revenue sharing. Right now, Mr. Speaker, the land claims that have been settled have a portion of the resource revenue going back to those claim organizations, but it is very small compared to what the potential is. We see this as an opportunity to get some of those dollars to stay in the North so we can do the reinvestments in projects we believe are necessary for themselves. I am hoping that through our work with regional leaders, we will be able to pull them together and we will be able to present a common package, a design for Northerners by Northerners and engage the federal government at that level. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The mine industry and the oil and gas industry have a huge potential in the Mackenzie Valley. I ask the Premier in terms of his discussions with the proponents of the Mackenzie Gas Project, proponents who are drilling in the Northwest Territories, mining companies, in terms of them lending him a hand in terms of going to Ottawa and forcing the government to sit down and have a good resource package for the people in the Northwest Territories. Has the Premier approached our partners in those areas?
Mr. Speaker, in the early days of project development of the Mackenzie Gas Project, for example, and others, we have talked about devolution and resource revenue sharing is one way to help streamline the regulatory maze that is out there, as well as streamline the processes we can put in place and capture the benefits of development and keep them in the North. Unfortunately, as the record clearly shows, numerous governments have tried to move this along and we have not been able to get to that last hurdle. One of the issues that I addressed at the last regional leaders’ meeting is we need to have a fundamental discussion. Is the capture in the sense of the dollars that we want to capture and keep in the North or is it the authority? Is that the driver so that we can effect change as the future goes on? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
