Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The area of sole-sourced contracts, that is one of the tools that the government has available through our Contracts Policy, whether it is negotiated contracts, sole-sourced contracts, public tenders, requests for proposals, requests for qualifications. In the area of the Executive itself, this has been a practice that’s been in place for many years of sole-sourced contracts when we feel that it is necessary to hire an individual who we feel can get the work we need done. Whether it is in Ottawa or another provincial jurisdiction or whether it is in fact working with our own aboriginal partners in the Northwest Territories. It is a tool that we have available to use when we do this. We follow the guidelines that we have in place.
When you do go to a sole-source way of acquiring goods and services, like I said in my statement, the transparency and accountability take a back seat to hiring whoever you want. I think the people in the Northwest Territories deserve a better way of doing things. I know there are times when sole-sourcing is required. But, for example, in the Department of Executive there is a communications firm, and I won’t mention any names. Hundreds of thousands of dollars have gone to that one outlet. Why wasn’t that put out to RFP? There are many communications companies here in the Northwest Territories that could have bid on that work. Why was that sole-sourced?
The Member talks about a contract with a firm. I’m not aware of this specific issue that the Member has or the company and will appropriately not address it at this forum. I will be prepared if he wants to sit down with me over this issue and provide him information on that. Right now, without knowing the specifics, I don’t have it at my hands here to make any proper response to.
I will take the Premier up on that and give him the name outside of this forum. I wanted to ask the Premier whether or not the Government of the Northwest Territories is monitoring the level of reliance that this government has on consulting services. In my mind, it’s getting worse and whether or not we can try to rein in the spending that this government does in the area of consultants and hiring people to do the work on behalf of the government. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, on a regular basis, as we go through our process of approving contracts, there are guidelines that are used, whether they are low-level amounts that the authority has within a department’s authority spending levels or if it a director or even to the deputy minister and also to the Cabinet table. We do look at that, as right now ITI pulls all of our contracting information. We look at that information at times and look at what we’re doing and question department’s on some of the initiatives and why it was needed to go in that area. So we do do that review, yes.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, going through the contract book, I’d just like to ask the Premier: do former bureaucrats, deputy ministers, have any preferential treatment when it comes to being given sole-source contracts by this government? Thank you.
Speaker, there is no preferential treatment given to anyone in the Northwest Territories. They have to bring their qualities and qualifications to the table. Now, as the Member has pointed out, there has been a history, whether it’s this government, previous governments, that use either past senior managers, and again, departments, Ministers have that authority to enter into some contracts. Being a small jurisdiction, at times if the Minister or a department is comfortable with the work that has been provided, at times you need to use those people and those resources to continue on some work that may have been started and bring it to conclusion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, getting back to my Member’s statement and also in regard to the whole area of change that has taken place since the famous Order-in-Council passed in 1960 by the federal Cabinet. Mr. Speaker, the Northwest Territories has had a grave history in regard to how aboriginal people have moved forward and trying to find ways of getting entrenched into the democratic system of the Northwest Territories regardless if it’s by way of ensuring that we were involved in the decision-making process, regardless if it’s regulatory management boards, economic measures. But again, Mr. Speaker, where a lot of these powers really took hold was in the Constitution Act amendments in 1982 in regard to the Canadian Constitution amendments which recognized and affirmed aboriginal rights under Section 35.
Since then, Mr. Speaker, we’re talking about something that took place in 1960. Yet, all these activities have changed the legal precedents that have been set. We have the Marshall case. We have court cases that have set precedents in Canada. But for a government to go back to 1960 and pull something out of the archives and say this is where I got my authority from is not the way that the government should be operating. We have the NWT Act. There’s a process to make amendments to the NWT Act. Why is this government not using that process to find ways to resolve this issue and do it by amendments to legislation that this government is responsible for in the NWT in regard to the Wildlife Act?
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the area the Member goes into, he’s well aware, he’s negotiated for claims processes through the Sahtu and the Gwich’in as well, and he’s familiar with the legislation that we operate under. He’s been a Member of this Legislative Assembly for as long as I have, since 1995, and we know we both sit in this forum because of the NWT Act. I recall when my father was given the right to vote as well.
The issue that we have here is that we haven’t gone and dug out some piece of legislation that sat there. It is a part of the NWT Act. It is a part of an amendment the federal government made as it transferred the authority to the North and considered the possibilities of this situation. So we have the NWT Act that puts it in place, whether it is the legislative branch, the executive branch, the judicial branch, it puts it in place. We have within that the acts that have been transferred down to us and the authorities, so the Wildlife Act is one of those.
As Minister Miltenberger pointed out, we have been working through quite a number of years with our aboriginal partners in the North to up that piece of legislation, because we recognize, for example, the Tlicho Government is in place now, we recognize the land claim agreements that are in place now, and we need to update that. It is the area we have the most complex situation, is in the unsettled areas. For example, we have a clear process in the Gwich’in, the Inuvialuit, the Sahtu and the Tlicho. It is the unsettled areas where we have more of a complex procedure and arrangements and we’re continuing to try to work through those. Thank you.
I think, as a government, we already have an avenue to try to resolve this issue. It’s trying to amend the NWT Wildlife Act to ensure that these situations we’re in now can be avoided in the future and, more importantly, entrench those legal obligations we have to First Nations people in regard to hunting rights, and spell it out in the NWT Act so that we know it’s clear that there is a process that when we have this situation we will have dialogue, we will have discussions and we will have a process to resolve our outstanding issues through a legislative process. Right now we don’t have that and that’s why we have the problem that we’re in. I’d like to know, by using that process, if that’s a better avenue than trying to go to court.
Mr. Speaker, that’s exactly what we’re trying to do with the Wildlife Act. In fact, this government is committed to bring it back to this Assembly before the end of the life of the 16th Assembly so we can bring more clarity to the way we work together for the benefit of the people across the Northwest Territories. The Member is very familiar, as I am and other Members who have been around a long time, that we’ve tried to work through that process of the Wildlife Act through a number of Legislatures and where our goal is to have a new Wildlife Act put on the table for this Legislative Assembly to act. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I believe we do have to have enabling legislation to pass what’s basically been negotiated in the land claim agreements, enable what’s already agreed to in Treaty 8, Treaty 11, for those unsettled areas, and ensure that we clearly spell out those arrangements through the amendments to the Wildlife Act and bring it to this House and allow that to be the process to resolve this issue. I’d like to suggest to the Minister that we put everything aside, resolve this through those discussions, bring it to conclusion and bring it back to this House.
Mr. Speaker, the process, as the Member is well aware, the Wildlife Act, as I stated earlier, has outlived a number of Assemblies. I believe it was the 14th Assembly that we started the initial work, as some of us have been around that long, to try to update the Wildlife Act; the 15th.Assembly. We are now in the 16th Assembly and if we waited for that process, there’s no guarantee that there will be a satisfactory response. Maybe this Assembly might send it back for some other work. Meanwhile, as the Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, on the counts and the estimated harvest that happens on an annual basis, we could be faced with a situation that was faced with back in the ‘50s in the Beaufort-Delta when there was no caribou and the federal government had to bring reindeer herds in and that’s what people had to survive on. While we have the authorities, we see the numbers, we need to work with our partners. The Minister has been working to try to bring this to a satisfactory conclusion. We know we need to do that, and we continue to work on that basis. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final, short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, I strongly recommend to the government and this Cabinet to do away with the bickering and get on with the process. We went through a whole process on Species at Risk. We did a good job there. We allowed consultation. We allowed involvement of the aboriginal groups at that table to be part of the drafting team. I think we have to do the same thing in regard to the Wildlife Act. I’d like to ask the Premier: can we put aside our differences, move forward with a table to start these negotiations, get them concluded, and agree that we basically have to find an avenue of consultation to get out of this mess that we find ourselves in? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the process of the Wildlife Act is in gear. We are working with the aboriginal governments in the Northwest Territories to update that piece of legislation. In fact, at one of our first regional leaders’ tables, we started to work on a bit of process to move these initiatives forward. The Species at Risk Act is an example of that: working together. We will continue to work on that initiative. In the meantime, we have a very serious problem facing us here in the Northwest Territories. Conservation measures have been taken. We continue to work with the groups that are involved. We have agreement and support on the conservation initiatives and the outstanding group is the Yellowknives. The work is ongoing there. The Minister told us earlier he continues to work to try to find a solution with the Yellowknives. We hope that we can come to a satisfactory conclusion in this area. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would like to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment some questions about following up from my Member’s statement. My constituent took advantage of a senior’s home heating subsidy program because he had heard informally about it, not because of the availability and the benefit was advertised. Beyond the Internet, what steps are being taken by the Minister to promote the availability of the program to clients through mass media, contact with seniors, social service agencies and so on and other proactive means? Will the Minister take steps to see that the program is more aggressively promoted? Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. As the Member indicated, this is a particular program for seniors to deal with their home heating subsidy. We do advertise in the newspaper. Also, not only that, but Internet and also local TV channels for information. We need to spread the news into the communities that we do have subsidy available. We do what we can to spread the news through our regional representatives as well as through client service officers and the regional officers. Mr. Speaker, we continue to improve our communication dialogue on through those individuals that require subsidies such as seniors heating subsidy. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, there are lots of in-service training courses advertised but I have never seen one offered on client service management, which is an extremely well-developed science and business management. ECE and other departments deliver many programs, income support and so on, across the counter to clients. What steps will the Minister take to improve the skills of the public servants who serve the public, including mandatory training and providing good client service? Mahsi.
Mr. Speaker, one of our key priorities is, of course, public relations that we have in place. We do have a continuous training program that is highlighted for client service officers dealing with the public. Mr. Speaker, this area is of importance to income security. We do have in-house training. We do send client service officers outside to get trained as well. So there is continuous training that is happening. We can’t say that there is no training happening. I have to correct the Member that there is constant training that is taking place. We will continue to do so to improve our public relations in the general public. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Time for question period has expired; however, I will allow the Member a supplementary question. Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate those comments and commitments from the Minister. Are employees assessed as part of their performance evaluation on the quality of their client service with recommendations for training and improvement where necessary? On that, is there an opportunity for the public to contribute to evaluations, perhaps not on the individual but a mechanism for them to say how they are being treated so we are not kicking them when they are down or whatever? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, in this particular area, yes, our employees or client services officers under the management of the income support managers do assess them, do evaluate them based on the work criteria. Not only that, but we request for outside assessment as well. We ask certain individuals that may be as part of the clientele. We need to get input as much as we can because it is public relations. It is one of the priorities that we need to establish. We continue to improve on those areas. Yes, Mr. Speaker, we do have a mechanism to deal with that assessment of all client service officers. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
How many visits did client service officers make to Lutselk’e in the following years:
2007-2008
2008-2009
2009-2010 (to date)
How many clients were seen during these visits broken down by approvals and refusals?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are for the Minister of Executive.
Please provide the purpose of the following contracts:
PM 007910
PM 07671
PM 06818
What was the reason for sole sourcing these contacts?
What value was were received as a result of these contracts?
Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we go through another budgetary process, I think there are a few things that I feel are missing here. One of the things and the frustration from the Mackenzie Delta residents I represent feel that this government is out of touch and out of sight in most cases to those people in those smaller isolated communities and communities sitting in the Mackenzie Delta by way of hearing their voices in regards to I stand up in this House time after time, raise issues for policing services to medical services to programs and services which are fundamental to the basic building blocks of communities. You need to have healthy, vibrant communities. We talked about safe communities. You can’t have safe communities without policing. You can’t have healthy people without good health care. You cannot have an educated society without having the jobs and the economic potential that those young people have knowing that once you are educated, you will be able to fit into the economy of the Northwest Territories and not continue to be a social statistic sitting at home because, for some reason or another, your education is not good enough. If you don’t have the skills, you are not good enough.
I think this government has to focus on individuals in the Northwest Territories from the small communities to the larger centres. The focus of this government clearly is in the larger communities and not where it needs the most attention, which is the small communities. For myself, I am frustrated to a point of coming here asking questions day after day, tabling motions in this House, writing questions, trying to get information from this government and from different Ministers and yet all they have to do is take action. A little action will go a long ways to improve services for people in small communities. That is all they want. Let us see a nurse in our community. Let us see the RCMP show up once in awhile. Let us ensure that young people growing up in Colville Lake or Tsiigehtchic, Fort McPherson or Aklavik or any other aboriginal community in the Northwest Territories have an opportunity to achieve the dream that they have of being successful in life.
This government has big dreams: $165 million bridge, $600 million Taltson project, $100 million school in Inuvik. But I think, at the end of the day, if those people do not get out of the social situation they find themselves today, they will continue to be statistics.
I think the frustrating part that I feel of small communities is that we have totally shifted focus from the Northwest Territories as I used to know it where we have 51 communities between Nunavut and the Northwest Territories. We had better services back then than we have today after division. That’s the result of division. We got less, but the larger communities got more. For me that is not the way government is supposed to work.
The foundation of any government is built on how they treat society and the society that they’re responsible for and the people they’re responsible for. You take care of the sick, the lame, the disabled people and the people that are struggling. That’s where government’s role fits in, not help big companies build $600 million hydro plants so you can give them cheap power, so they can send their diamonds over to Antwerp. That’s where we’re going. I think at the end of the day, this government has to really refocus its ears on exactly where you’re going, but, more importantly, what are we doing that these mega projects that we’re putting out there are achieving results. How many aboriginal people are employed on these job sites? How many people are getting their apprentice tickets on these job sites? How many people are staying in the Northwest Territories? There’s $240 million that migrates out of the Northwest Territories by way of people’s wages every year just from the mining industry; $240 million in wages.
I think it’s fundamentally clear from the frustration of the aboriginal leadership I represent in regard to the Gwich’in leadership in regard to the frustration they have with this government, in regard to negotiated contracts, in regard to obligations we have in our land claim agreements. We talk about caribou issues here, the Gwich’in are already in court with the Yukon because of the same type of hunting issue where the Yukon government imposed restrictions on them that you can only hunt bulls. Again, they have a treaty right, they have an obligation and are again being ignored by government. We are in the same boat here today in regard to the Bathurst issue. We’re able to work out a solution in regard to the Inuvialuit, the Gwich’in, the Sahtu, in regard to the Bluenose herd. Every community that has 25 tags, but if any of their members want to go hunt caribou, you have a tag. They solved that problem. They didn’t have to go to court. They worked it out and determined amongst themselves, sat down together and had meetings in all the communities, got everybody together and said what do we do. They resolved it themselves without having the Minister come here with a sledgehammer, pound on the table and say, well, I’ve got the authority.
That’s the frustration of being over on this side of the House and seeing exactly where are we really going as government. I think at the end of the day we, I’ll throw this word out there, people in my riding are considering what do we have to do to get our own government? Do we have to separate? Do we go join our cousins in Alaska and our cousins in the Yukon? Is that what it’s going to take to get better program services out of this government? Because I think that’s where it may have to go.
I think at the end of the day the question has to be asked, are we better off when we came into this government in regard to the people in Tsiigehtchic or the people in the small communities, the unemployed. The people are struggling because of income support, because of housing. I think at the end of the day you’ll get a unanimous yes, that things are worse today than they were when this government took office.
I think that side of the House has to go into those communities, go into somebody’s home that’s in social housing. All you’ve got to do is go in, ask for a cup of tea, open the fridge and see if there’s anything in there, because I bet you 50 percent of the time there won’t be anything in that fridge because people are struggling in our communities under the programs and services of this government.
Mr. Speaker, I think this government has to do a better job in ensuring programs and services are really there to help people than to make them beggars on their own lands. If you take away a person’s right or ability to sustain themselves regardless of if it’s a hunting right, a fishing right, a right to catch rabbits, if that person knows that they’re better off in the bush than they are in the community -- which most of them are because out there they can sustain themselves -- but because of the government bureaucracy and the red tape in our communities, they are basically being controlled to a point where every nickel you make, the elders payments that they get because of a land claim, is clawed back by government. They’re no farther ahead by getting a payment for a land claim because you’re 70 years old, because two months down the road government isn’t going to help you. Oh, you’ve got too much money, you’ve got $2,700, can’t help you there, come back in two months and we might be able to help you. These are elders who are 70 years old. It’s sad, but it’s true.
I think, you know, I hate to put the pitch on this one of how bad things really are, but maybe what we should do is get some people from that side of the table going to our communities and sit down with the elders who are struggling and see for yourself what I’m talking about. I think sometimes you get too far up in that pyramid and you’ve forgot about the little guy that’s on the ground. I think that’s what’s happening to Members on that side of the House.
I feel that sometimes it’s great to have economic development, it’s great to have opportunities there, but if you can’t access those opportunities, can’t be hired because you don’t have the skills, you don’t have the certification, the other thing, sorry, you don’t have working boots or steel toed boots, you can’t come to work because you can’t afford to buy yourself the pair of boots to go to work in the first place, so how do you expect those people to get ahead?
Mr. Speaker, I think it’s time to allow this government to refocus its attention to where the resources should be expended and quit building these humungous things. I know it’s great for Yellowknife, the dementia centre, we’ve got to spend $2 million to operate it, we’re going to have a glorified clinic here, but Tsiigehtchic has a health centre with nobody to work in it. I think, if anything, we have to move some of those people out of the larger centres, put them in the communities in regard to ensuring that the services are really provided.
Mr. Speaker, I think that this government has to ensure that there is a different way of breeding wealth in the system of government we have. I know we had great intentions to allow municipalities to manage, we allowed municipalities to take advantage of federal capital infrastructure dollars, gas tax and whatnot, but the way I see it, the only groups that are going to benefit from that are the groups with high populations. The little groups like Tsiigehtchic with 170 people or Colville Lake with 120, the gas tax is so minute you couldn’t build yourself a good sized house for the amount of money that you get, never mind trying to deliver services in your community, because it’s based on per capita. Per capita does not work. You have to have a base funding formula that allows you to operate water treatment plants, maintain your roads and ensure that you have public infrastructure in every community that allows you those services so that those people can receive similar services throughout the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Speaker, this government has three more budget cycles to go before the next election. Mr. Speaker, I hope that somehow we’re able to refocus the wealth of this government by way of the $1.3 billion we’ve spent every year and ensure that it goes to the people in most need and ensure that those dollars are being spent on the people that really are Northerners that live here, make this their homes, who we know at the end of the day are not going to migrate out because the job isn’t here. We’re staying here because this is our home. I think at some point in time you have to ensure that aboriginal people in the Northwest Territories are being heard, are being listened to and being told if you are going to do something, you do it. You don’t say, oh yeah, well, we’ll give you a nurse February 1st and then come back to a meeting in Inuvik and say sorry, I’m working on it. Working on it does not put a nurse in the community. Somebody has got to shake the tree and shake the bush and say get that nurse in the community under ministerial authority or take the money out for Tsiigehtchic and give it to the community of Tsiigehtchic and they can hire their own nurse. At least they’ll get a nurse in their community. Or maybe they have to go to United Nations or take a constitutional challenge with regard to aboriginal rights in not ensuring that the health and well-being of those people are being taken care of.
I’d like to elaborate a little on this caribou issue, because something that just totally gets me is why do we have a Department of Environment that allowed this to happen in the first place? We had a herd of 400,000 animals; now we have 30,000. Who is in charge of those animals? The Department of Environment. Yet at the 11th hour they show up with a sledgehammer and say, sorry, we have to stop you guys from hunting today because the herd disappeared. Where did it go? This government should have caught this a lot sooner than to have to come here at the 11th hour and tell the average people that they can’t hunt anymore. But then they give the outfitters $300,000. Here, we’ll compensate you guys. You guys got $300,000, it should take care of you. Are we going to compensate the aboriginal harvesters for taking away their right to hunt? I think that this government has to explain to the people of the Northwest Territories what action they took in regard to how this situation turned out to what it is.
More importantly, there is nothing mentioned in any of your discussions or documentation on industrial development impacts on this herd. This herd is in the centre of where the most exploration and development has taken place in the last decade in the Northwest Territories. The calving grounds are just north of the major development area. You have trucks going up this ice road every six minutes. Six minutes. When the caribou is on this side of the road and a truck is passing every six minutes, well, the caribou is probably going to get a little hungry waiting to get across that road. Yet there are no road closures during that time. In our region of the Gwich’in Settlement Region we shut the harvesting down for two weeks so that the caribou can migrate across the highway. We do it because we feel it’s part of our obligation to do so. But as government that’s what you should have been doing.
The other thing that gets me is the number of outfitter tags that this government was giving away. I believe one outfitter had 120 tags. How many outfitters were there? Calculate all the amount of caribou that was taken by the outfitters and compare it to the aboriginal harvest that you’re trying to restrict today. But you compensated them. But you aren’t able to justify why you’ve taken away the subsistence ability of the aboriginal people.
With that, I will leave it at that. Have a good day.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to follow up on Mr. Krutko’s comments. My comments would be around the issue of the caribou and how this has come to the forefront in terms of the various different types of positions put by various people. I’ve always said to go back to the elders because the elders are the ones who were raised on the land, they know the land, they know the animals, and the elders have always told us how to behave on the land with specific animals and which animals have special gifts for the people. I’m not too sure how well that sits in with the non-native people in terms of our relationship with the animals. I talk about this because I ask this government in terms of how seriously have they taken the elders’ views and consideration as to determine how to work with the animals. I say this because when I had a meeting in Colville Lake, the Colville Lake people have a very special relationship with the caribou. I asked the elders about that relationship and they told me their story about how they have that relationship with the animals and they say that the Department of ENR doesn’t understand. The elders have always said, do not put collars on our animals. How is it if they would put collars on themselves and see how they feel? The animals are special, they said. Do not put collars on caribou. Still, they don’t listen. Why would the elders tell us this? If they did tell us, how come ENR did not listen when our elders spoke about this important thing? That’s what I want to talk about.
Elders grew up on the land. They know the land. Why haven’t we put enough weight in terms of seeking out their advice and guidance? It’s just like we don’t care for them. We don’t want to listen to them. Only at specific times that we want to use them. That is not right. The area that we talked about, there are three major mines happening there. There has to be an impact with all the blasting of the rock. You fly over that area and you’ll see the amount of work that’s been on that land. You’ll see the amount of activity that’s happening. The blasting to dig a hole for diamonds. From my view it seems we’re giving more weight to this economy, which serves a lot of people, but we’re forgetting about the real people. And they’ve been here for thousands and thousands of years.
I read a book the other day called “The NWT Ice Pass Study” up in the Mackenzie Mountains where they found scientific evidence of caribou and weapons used 5,000 years ago by our people. That’s rich traditional knowledge that our elders have and our people have. Yet we seem to give more credence and prudence to the scientific evidence. They are just finding out about what we already know. They’re using that very strong evidence against our people.
The Dene Nation, my people, know about consultation. Why do you think we’ve had caribou for the last 5,000 years? They’re still going to be here, they tell me. Has ENR talked to our elders in terms of this issue here?
The Dene Nation, through several meetings, talked about working out an agreement, working on the issues, getting resources. They know this ahead of time. I don’t know why, I’m still trying to understand why the Minister jumped the gun, so to speak, in terms of putting a ban on hunting in this specific area thinking that it will be okay, that he can convince us. He hasn’t yet convinced me why this ban is there. Now he’s in issues dealing with the Yellowknives Dene First Nation to work out a solution. And he says maybe a day or two, provided the First Nations people agree to a type of agreement that would be satisfactory. I hope there is a deal that will allow the people to harvest like they have done for thousands of years. Teach us about caribou.
This is totally, totally wrong in terms of how we go about building a relationship with our First Nations people. We hear different stories, we read in the press, they print different stories. We hear on the radio. The Minister tells us different things. Our leadership tells us different things. We’re doing things differently that create a lot of hardship amongst ourselves. I spoke to one leader in Tulita. I just asked about how it sounds on the radio. He said if we continue this way whoever wins is going to create a lot of hardship for us. This is not about nation-building trust in terms of nation to nation. We have two governments, many governments, trying to do what’s good for the Northwest Territories, our land, Denendeh.
Mr. Speaker, even the old document of the Order-in-Council of 1960, I want to challenge the validity of it. That’s old information. It shouldn’t be used. The Government of Canada itself needs to come into play here. How do we know if the Bathurst herd is becoming endangered. There’s Bluenose-East, Bluenose-West caribou coming into this zone. What happens when this herd comes outside of the zone? Is there strong evidence that this is Bathurst caribou? Do we know if it’s the Bluenose-East or West, Ahiak? I’m not too sure.
Mr. Speaker, when you have this type of direction given by the department on a nation of people, it brings up lots of feelings for people. Mr. Krutko talked about it earlier, the first time aboriginal people get the right to vote in this wonderful world we call Canada. Prior to that, there were laws put for people like myself that we call Dene or Metis. There were laws for us that the Government of Canada will take care of us. There were laws to not organize ourselves in a political manner, to outlaw certain ceremonial events and activities. The biggest issue that we had was there was a law for educating children to assimilate them. They call it cultural genocide. Many of my people have experienced it. It was torture when they took us away and put us in these residential schools. That’s the brunt of things. Now we come back and this thing about the ban and about aboriginal rights and treaty rights, it just resonates a lot, a lot of hurt feelings, a lot of angry feelings.
Today I have not yet been convinced by this government, this Minister that this is what needed to happen. I have trust in my people. I have trust in my elders. I have faith in my culture that my grandfather and his grandfather for thousands of years have managed our wildlife. I believe we can do it today. We don’t need this type of process, this type of consultation. I feel that if we don’t resolve this, that we’re going to have a hard time getting the support of the aboriginal people on certain issues that are very important to us as the Government of the Northwest Territories.
Mr. Krutko talked about outfitters. There are about 10 outfitters in that zone and about four mines. That’s a lot of caribou to look at when you look at 10 outfitters for the number of tags that have been issued.
Mr. Speaker, this issue has significant consequences and I think aboriginal people across Canada are paying close attention to this issue here. I think the territorial government needs to be paying closer attention as to how do we build relationships with our peoples in our communities. Caribou is our life. It’s in our blood. Even my son wrote something this morning about caribou as his school work. They’re teaching that at Mildred Hall School, Dene Kede, about the animals. So it’s important.
I speak for my people, Mr. Speaker. I don’t believe, as I said before when my grandfather signed a treaty in 1921, we would come to this type of issue. He’s too good of a man to let this kind of issue, something that we have to fight for as aboriginal people. I want to say to the Minister, I sincerely hope that he does come to a resolution with the YK Dene on a larger picture to how do we resolve this type of issue that’s taking up so much of our time. It’s valuable time, good time that we need to know where issues stand in the Northwest Territories today in regard to hunting caribou, rights, industrial development, who takes precedence in terms of dealing with this.
Mr. Speaker, I want to say that people in the Sahtu who I spoke to, my grand chief, have given me the right to support our people in the Yellowknife, Ndilo and Dettah area in terms of this issue here. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Monday, February 8, 2010, I will move the following motion: now therefore I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Nahendeh, that the Government of the Northwest Territories set a place and date to have an emergency meeting with the aboriginal people of the NWT to consider their consultative process and come to an agreement regarding the caribou; and further, that the Government of the NWT look at alternative measures to resolve the issue.
Mr. Speaker, at the appropriate time I will be seeking unanimous consent to deal with this motion today.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Item 17, notices of motion for first reading of bills. Item 18, motions. The honourable Member for the Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to deal with the motion I gave notice of earlier today.
The Member is seeking unanimous consent to deal with the motion he gave notice of earlier today. Are there any nays?
Nay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I MOVE, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that, notwithstanding Rule 4, when this House adjourns on Thursday, February 4, 2010, it shall be adjourned until Monday, February 8, 2010;
AND FURTHER, that any time prior to February 8, 2010, if the Speaker is satisfied, after consultation with the Executive Council and Members of the Legislative Assembly, that the public interest requires that the House should meet at an earlier time during the adjournment, the Speaker may give notice and thereupon the House shall meet at the time stated in such notice and shall transact its business as it has been duly adjourned to that time.
