Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just literally a few minutes ago, this House was resounding with the news of devolution. I would like to offer my congratulations to the Premier and his staff, our government and previous governments that have led to this devolution deal as well as, of course, Aboriginal leaders.
It’s great to see that all of the Aboriginal governments with settled land claims are at the table. We will apparently have considerable new authority with this devolution deal, but I also noticed, as I’m sure others did, that there were some binders on the words that we heard earlier today, one of which was, of course, that we have two Aboriginal governments without settled authorities who are still not at the table. Obviously, we need to work on that.
And even a bigger concern is that we heard that apparently the federal government retains the authority for environmental impacts and review. We have the authority to mine and to drill, but we don’t need to worry about the environment because that apparently will be the responsibility of the federal government. This, of course, is in contrast to what we’ve been hearing from our Premier and Ministers during our debates on environmental issues with respect to devolution.
So my question will be: Where will we get the authority for dealing with the management of the land issues? It’s clear that this is being retained by the federal government. So in all respects, I think this will take quite a period of time to look at. We obviously need a thorough consultation.
I’m very happy that we are making progress and that we signed this agreement, but I also have some grave concerns. I will be looking forward to a real consultation opportunity with all of the public, and debate the various aspects of this deal.
My biggest concern remains. It is almost diabolical that we’ve been given the authority to go out and develop and dig out all of these resources that were mentioned, whereas we have to trust the federal government to look after the land. That is a concern and I will be speaking on that and asking questions when I can. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.
