Debates of June 5, 2006 (day 5)

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Handley.

Further Return To Question 54-15(5): Update On The Progress Of The Northern Strategy

Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct; the $40 million was a down payment. The government-of-the-day agreed to provide $40 million to each territory to be able to deal with issues that were of greatest urgency in each territory. That is why we allocated to the community governments to allow them to determine their first priorities.

It has always been felt that resource revenue sharing and fixing the formula were a key piece of any northern vision. That is the piece that we have been focussed on recently with the two expert panel reports, the most recent of which was released today. Fixing the resource revenue sharing so more of that revenue stays in the North will enable us to be more self-reliant, self-determining ourselves. That has been our thrust up to now. Mr. Speaker, in doing that, we have laid out to the federal government a number of strategies saying here is what our priority is, whether it is on infrastructure or on social programs or any other areas. Clearly, the focus over the last few months and probably over the next few months will be on a new formula and new resource revenue sharing arrangements. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Braden.

Supplementary To Question 54-15(5): Update On The Progress Of The Northern Strategy

Mr. Speaker, one of the key ingredients in this is the understanding, support and collaboration of the provinces in Canada. The report by the Council of the Federation really is a striking endorsement of our goals. I wanted to ask the Premier what his plan is for continuing to strengthen that relationship with the provinces, as he says we have done with the federal government, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Handley.

Further Return To Question 54-15(5): Update On The Progress Of The Northern Strategy

Mr. Speaker, I assure all the Members in this House that we are going to continue to work in cooperation with all of the Premiers. We met last week in Gimli. We did talk generally about this. This is the expert panel report. The Premiers all assured myself and the other northern Premiers that they are 100 percent on side with us. We are meeting again on Thursday. We will be talking about the territorial report as well as the provincial report dealing with equalization. We have full agreement that they are 100 percent behind us, that our situation is unique, that we shouldn’t be drawn into some formula that applies to the provinces, Prince Edward Island and Saskatchewan or something. Ours is unique.

Mr. Speaker, I will be taking every opportunity to make sure that we maintain that kind of solid support from all the Premiers. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.