Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister for Executive, and it’s quite convenient because he also happens to be the Premier and my questions go across several departments.
I mentioned in my Member’s statement that I think that there still is a need for an ombudsman office. I also mentioned that I have heard from another Minister that apparently they are working in conjunction with the Executive to consider options for an ombudsman office. I’d like to know from the Minister for Executive what action has his department taken in the last year with regard to the establishment of an ombudsman office. Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Department of Executive has worked with the Minister of Justice and his department in this area and looked at jurisdictions across this country as to where an office may be situated, an office of the ombudsman. The research shows that for a position of that nature needing to be arm’s length from government and not tied to a particular ministry, most jurisdictions have that position tied to their Assembly. Thank you.
Thanks to the Premier for those remarks. I didn’t really get any idea of whether or not there’s been any action over there, but I’d like to ask the Minister if he can explain to me and to this House just what priority an ombudsman office has in this government’s total priorities. Is there any hope that it might soon be on the radar? Thank you.
As I was trying to say, in the research that was done, a position of that nature is not put in place by the government in the sense of the Cabinet. It is put in, in this case it would be through the Assembly and the Board of Management, is my understanding. Thank you.
Thank you to the Premier. I now understand where he was going. Not in my backyard, I guess. I’d like to know from the Minister whether or not the issue of an ombudsman office is far enough to the forefront of this government that it might be included in transition documents to take us from the 16th Assembly to the 17th. Thank you.
The government, at this time with the existing arrangement, we have one seat on the Board of Management and, I don’t know; we’d have to sit down and talk with members of the board to see if, in fact, it is on their agenda. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m not too sure what I can ask at this point. I have no question, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My question is directed to the Deputy Premier, Mr. Miltenberger, in regard to my comments in regard to the alienating of the treaty and the people in the Northwest Territories which make up the Treaty 8 and Treaty 11 and includes the majority of the Mackenzie Valley in the Northwest Territories. In light of that, we do have some obligations.
I’d like to ask the Deputy Premier exactly what are we doing to mend the fences to accommodate the treaty people in the Northwest Territories who basically have fundamental rights under Treaty 8, Treaty 11 and the modern day treaties and also in Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution.
Thank you, Mr. Krutko. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As this question is directed, if I was not able to do the job then we would obviously go to the Deputy Premier in this case. As Premier I take direction from the Cabinet and Members of the Assembly in much of the work we do. In this area, the Member has raised a number of concerns and issues around the devolution agreement. As the devolution agreement is spelled out clearly, we look at the constitutional protection and rights of Aboriginal peoples throughout the Northwest Territories and that’s been incorporated. As for reaching out and looking towards working with the groups towards signing and joining us as we go down this path of negotiations, that door is open and we’re, as I have pointed out in the review of Executive budget yesterday, that we would have to this Assembly in a supplementary appropriation to ask for additional resources and we’re prepared to do that once we have a framework and a budget put out. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as I illustrated in my Member’s statement, there have been fundamental court cases in the Northwest Territories with regard to the Paulette case, the Calder case in B.C., and also other court cases in Canada in regard to the Delgamuukw decision, which clearly illustrate that the governments, regardless if it’s the Government of the Northwest Territories or the Government of Canada, have a fiduciary obligation to protect the rights of indigenous people in the Northwest Territories and in Canada under those particular court cases, but more importantly, under Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution. So we do have a basic fiduciary obligation to protect those rights. By this transfer taking place without those indigenous people signing on and not endorsing this, are we fundamentally breaching that accommodation to ensure that we protect the rights of indigenous people especially the treaty Indians in the Northwest Territories?
Mr. Speaker, the signing of the devolution agreement, the work that is going to start in preparation for negotiation is part of a long process that has included Aboriginal groups from the very inception of the framework through to a signing of the past government and a number of the groups that went into the federal government to the process we’ve engaged in as the 16th Legislative Assembly. Clearly, again, the AIP has language throughout the agreement that talks about protecting the rights of Aboriginal peoples across the Northwest Territories under Section 35, under the land claims agreements and many of those areas, so we have, in fact, written into this agreement and we practice it as the Government of the Northwest Territories. For example, in any legislation that comes before this Assembly, if it has language that talks about non-infringing an Aboriginal people’s rights. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, as we all know, the indigenous people of the Northwest Territories, especially the ones with treaty rights, basically have a fundamental right spelled out in Treaty 8, modern day treaties and also under Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution. Mr. Speaker, it is clearly illustrated that we have a duty to consult and include and involve them in these processes. From what is clearly stipulated, they haven’t been involved in this process. If anything, they have been alienated because of their views and the government that does not like to accommodate those views and basically remove them from the table. I would like to know what are we doing as a government to accommodate treaty Indians in the Northwest Territories, ensuring that their fundamental rights are not being breached by this agreement.
Mr. Speaker, I disagree with what the Member stated about not honouring those agreements. In fact, clearly, during the life of this Assembly, we can show many examples of where we have gone above and beyond working with Aboriginal organizations and governments across the Northwest Territories, right from working together on the Water Strategy, the Wildlife Act, where the groups have joined us in writing the act, to the agreement-in-principle and devolution process. In fact, the door remains open for them to join the process and, in fact, help design some of the negotiation mandates that would be there when it is a joint mandate that we would approach the federal government on, for example. We have gone a long ways. In fact, right from when the letters were initiated by the chief negotiators to Minister Duncan’s office and to my office, as well as letters gone directly to each regional leader about the agreement-in-principle and the work done.
We have worked with the groups starting in November, after the chance to do their internal review. We sat with them early in November, in December, in January. In fact, January 23rd when we held the meeting and had more work done towards the protocol and even provided that I would be available to pull myself out of meetings if they wanted to change some of that language to go forward. What happened there? The groups, instead of working on additional language and requesting that I come out of those meetings, worked on a protest. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Krutko.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I clearly would like to stipulate that we do have an obligation to include First Nations people, and more importantly, that they do have fundamental rights to lands and resources in the Northwest Territories, not only the Government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories. Again, it is those rights that are being questioned here. I think it is not a question of process, it is a question of fundamental rights. What is the Premier doing to try to accommodate those First Nations groups, especially ones with treaties who have not signed, and to allow them to continue on either especially in their opinions, more importantly having a process that they can be fully integrated into the negotiations of the process than simply sitting on the sidelines? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, everything the Member said and his recent comments about the rights of Aboriginal people in the North, we agree. That is why the agreement-in-principle has the language it does about protecting Aboriginal rights. The section where the Constitution, Section 35, the land claims, we have that language throughout the agreement-in-principle. They are on the sidelines because they choose to. We have, in fact, invited them to be a part of this process going forward.
Following the signing, I have sent the letter to all the regions asking them to join with us again in this process as we go forward. In fact, again, I committed to Members of this Assembly, through the Executive budget review, that we would be prepared to put a budget in place to engage with communities and leaders on the AIP process towards the signing and joining them. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today it was regarding the trouble that we have been having in Inuvik at the airport with the aircraft not being able to land due to high winds and the friction. Mr. Speaker, will the government allocate resources to enhance the airports to develop operating systems that will lead the world in Arctic aviation in regards to airport runways? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. Michael McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I personally take full responsibility of all the issues that come forward on our projects on any of our operations. However, I certainly can’t control the weather that has been posing a lot of challenges to us. Mr. Speaker, this weekend we had a number of flights cancelled, as the Member indicated. We had a total of six flights that were scheduled to go into the community of Inuvik. Only one aircraft was able to land. It was not due to runway conditions. It was due to the high winds that we experienced over the weekend, especially in the Beaufort-Delta.
Mr. Speaker, is the Minister able to get us some starting staff and paying maybe a little bit of overtime to start getting the sweepers out at seven o’clock in the morning instead of eight, to make sure that runway is open so the planes could land? It wasn’t only the high winds and the cross-winds. The friction on the aircraft, the weight and balance issues, Mr. Speaker. Is it possible to get the Minister to let the department in Inuvik at the airport start at an earlier time? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, I am not sure where the Member is getting the indication that we are not allowing our people to work overtime. We provide all the resources to ensure that the aircraft that can land, that we have the right landing conditions. This year and over the last three years, we have been challenged with conditions that reduce the friction. That concerns the carriers. We have tried all types of methods to improve that. We have utilized our resources a lot more than we did historically, including the use of sand. We have tripled the amount of sand that we use on this airport. We certainly need to revisit the challenges that are being brought forward by climate change, where we have conditions of unusually warm weather followed by a decrease and a drop in temperature that freezes the moisture that is on the runways. That may be a requirement for us to look at using rather than sand and dry chemicals. We may have to look at de-icing through liquid form. We are trying to address the issue. There are challenges in doing so. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, why is it we are getting so much frost on the runway? I heard reports. It is not only the condensation. Are there any chemicals that were put on there by the Canadian military regarding the CF-18s? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, all the information points to the issues being brought forward by climate change. We had zero degrees temperature for several days followed by extreme cold in that area. We have this year applied 230 tonnes of sand where historically we have provided 50. You can tell that there are some challenges in dealing with ice conditions. We need to look at what are the jurisdictions doing and including some testing of our own to try to address the issue as we feel that this is going to be an ongoing issue occurring every year. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. You know that having that airport open 24 hours a day is a main key to the Beaufort-Delta in regards to the communities of Inuvik and all the surrounding communities because of the air medevacs and the jet service and that not having any flights per day causes havoc. We had over 200 people stranded in Inuvik. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister commit to me today to talking to the department regional superintendent in Inuvik to see what we can do if they have to start early, and is he willing to do that in regards to getting a commitment from him? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we have to make sure that we identify the difference between what happened over the weekend with the high winds and what’s been happening on the days that we have warm temperatures at the Inuvik Airport.
This weekend, as the Member is indicating, there were a lot of cancellation of flights. We have no control over that. The runway was dry, the runway was extremely good for landing conditions, it was as a result of the high winds. The airport was open and there was no concern over the staff hours at that point.
If there is an issue that the Member is wanting us to address over and above what we’re doing, we’d be glad to sit down and talk about the circumstances. We provide overtime, we provide materials, we have provided a lot of extra this year and we’ll continue to do so. We’ve committed to meet with the municipality, the town council in Inuvik and we will continue to have our staff available for discussion on this issue. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to follow up with my Member’s statement with questions to the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. First I’d like to ask the Minister to explain his actions on the granting of a 147 square kilometre lease in the Norman Wells block transfer area. Since the Minister thoroughly informed himself of his powers and obligations before signing this lease, what particular legislative, regulatory and policy references guided the Minister in the lease of this land, which the sole unclaimed lands in the block land transfer are surrounding the community of Norman Wells, to a private interest? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. Robert McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Norman Wells Land Corporation made application for this land and we had a look at the application. All the proper processes were followed and so the land was hereby leased to the Norman Wells Land Corporation.
So I can assure the Member, regardless of what he says and the accusations he makes about a deficient application having not seen it, then I can assure the Member that all proper processes were followed. Thank you.
Thank you. I have seen a lot of documentation here provided by the community. The departmental correspondence indicates that beyond standard leasing conditions, the terms and conditions of the lease are confidential under the ATIPP legislation. Without being able to see the lease, this probably means that the conditions fall under the category for proprietary business information, but a development proposal is hardly confidential business information. It’s essential public knowledge for review of a proposed land use. If there is no development proposal and the land is just being held for future development, this is speculation. So which is it, Mr. Speaker, a secret business scheme or a land grab for speculation? Thank you.
Thank you. The Norman Wells Land Corporation has indicated that they want to use the land for future economic base for their membership and they do have some ideas as to what they want to use the land for. Obviously if they go to develop it in the future, there are a few issues that need to be taken care of and the appropriate bodies have to be applied to, but they have made it quite clear that this land is supposed to be and they have a future economic base for their constituents. They also have indicated preliminarily what they want to use the land for. Again, I will say for the fifth time, they’ve met all the proper processes in the disposal of Commissioner’s land. Thereby the land was leased to the Norman Wells Land Corporation. Thank you.
Thank you. In my humble opinion, it certainly did not meet all those requirements and I will be asking this government to include in the review the specifics of this case. So I’m wondering if the Minister can confirm that his review of the leasing policies of this government will include a specific review of the processes in this case and the ethics that were followed in doing this. Thank you.
The Member is throwing accusations out there and talking about ethics and I take offense to that. All the proper processes were followed, it came down to -- and I’ve heard from folks in Norman Wells -- the fact they just don’t like it and in the words of one member of the Norman Wells Community Council, we got beat to the punch. That’s the basis for all of this. If there needs to be a transparent review of how this land was disposed of, we welcome that, because all proper processes were followed. Thank you.
Thank you. Mr. McLeod. Your final supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I disagree with the Minister. The community put in their interest for this land in 2002. So the Minister knows full well that they have expressed a long-term interest in this.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister has given away all of the land surrounding this community. There are no options for this community. Do we not have a fiduciary role to our municipalities and how much trust can we expect from our municipalities in the future as a result of this action? Thank you.
Thank you. The Member disagrees with the Minister because he doesn’t like it either, as he disagrees with a lot of things that go on in this Legislative Assembly. Mr. Speaker, the land in question is not going to impede the Norman Wells community from expanding. There’s still plenty of Commissioner’s land within the municipal boundaries. The Norman Wells Land Corporation saw an opportunity to acquire some land for the future of their people and what they want to do with them, so they made application. The application was reviewed. Hereby they now have the land.
Again I say, Mr. Speaker, that all the proper processes in this particular case were followed and it just came down to the fact that they didn’t like it. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I talked about the concerns, but certainly with support, for the single bag program that really I think demonstrates good environmental stewardship and I think makes a lot of sense when it comes to plastic bags. I’ve heard a lot of people, if not every person I’ve spoken to on this particular issue, that they do support the initiative that is targeting plastic bags.
Mr. Speaker, where the concern arises from people is many people have been shocked, or certainly taken by surprise in one manner or another, that paper bags are included. I’m wondering if the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources can explain the rationale as to why paper bags were included in this particular levy when most people feel that they are recyclable and biodegradable and they don’t even meet what would be considered good stewardship of our environment. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
