Debates of March 8, 2005 (day 51)

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche, for your opening comments. Minister Handley, would you like to bring in witnesses?

Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Does committee agree that we allow witnesses?

Agreed.

Thank you, committee. Sergeant-at-Arms, if you could please escort in the witnesses.

Thank you. Minister Handley, if you could, for the record, please introduce your witnesses.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On my left is Veronica Puskas, the manager of planning and analysis for the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs; on my right is Bob McLeod, deputy minister of the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Welcome, Mr. McLeod. Welcome Ms. Puskas. We will now move on to general comments on departmental estimates for Aboriginal Affairs. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. With respect to Aboriginal Affairs as it applies to the whole of the NWT and particularly my riding where we have the Deh Cho First Nations engaged in their process of, they call it the Deh Cho process, are the efforts similar to what is going on with the NWT of wanting to maintain control over their resources. I am glad to see that our government is supportive of this and, for the most part, is trying to keep their hands away from it and let the process unfold, particularly in the last year or so, where it has been particularly tense in the court cases launched by the DCFN and the federal government.

Of course, in the midst, embroiled in all of this, are some of the things that are of interest to us as a government, which is the planned Mackenzie Valley gas pipeline project. It has a huge impact for us in terms of upsetting the stage for future growth for the Territories as a whole and all the communities. In the middle of it all, of course, is the Deh Cho First Nations, and rightly so, because the majority of the planned pipeline passes through the Deh Cho region.

I come here and I am supportive of the aims and the goals of the Deh Cho First Nations. I have said many times in the halls of the Legislative Assembly, that the last time they created or installed a pipeline in the Northwest Territories, our communities didn’t benefit at all. This is something that is near and dear to me as well, and it is something that I want to get on with; this socioeconomic agreement and making sure, at least from a government perspective, that our communities and our people are protected in the long term. That is aside from the land claims or the Deh Cho process that is happening right now, Mr. Chairman.

There are a few different things that are happening that apply to the Deh Cho First Nations. We have the Intergovernmental Forum, the Aboriginal Summit, DCFN is still listed as observes and I still think that we have to extend every effort and continue to invite them to the table and assure them that just because they are participating, that doesn’t mean that they are buying into the process. For the most part they are saying that they're against, but then they have to be involved too, because the more they know about the process, then the better informed they are. There are lots of things that are happening. I don’t know if it’s outside of them, because they are choosing not to participate, but if we somehow use our Aboriginal Affairs to encourage, to ask for their involvement. Just because you are involved, does not mean that you are saying yes to anything. The more knowledge that we are able to share with them or the more knowledge that they want to get from our process, would be that much better for things as we go along in the future here, Mr. Chairman.

With respect to devolution, perhaps the Premier or the Minister can let me know -- I believe there were four areas of devolution left -- in terms of defining it. There is water, there are lands and resources, I believe mining was one of them. If the Minister can speak to those four things and some of the current plan that is being planned by the department in terms of assisting devolution processes. Mr. Chairman, I think I will just end on that note and allow the Minister to respond. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Let me say, first of all, that we do respect the Deh Cho process and the right of the Deh Cho people to negotiate the process that is underway right now. Our approach to this has been to be helpful and, at the same time, not be blocking anything that may be standing in the way.

At the same time, Mr. Chairman, while we want to be supportive of the Deh Cho, we also have to ensure we carry out our government responsibilities for all other regions in the Territories and other settled claims and other negotiations. We are continually needing to balance our activities and we try to do that in a way that is sensitive to everyone’s rights and aspirations.

Mr. Chairman, we do continue to support the Deh Cho, we continue to invite them to the meetings that we have. Whether it is with the Aboriginal Summit or meetings with aboriginal leaders in some other capacity, the Deh Cho are always invited. I have not turned down an opportunity to meet with Deh Cho leaders at the community level or at the regional level.

I want to help this move along. Like others, I suppose, I also want to see the Mackenzie Valley pipeline go ahead, but go ahead in a way that is beneficial to everybody. We are not running over somebody’s rights, so I support the Mackenzie Valley pipeline and hope that we are able to work well with the Deh Cho in achieving both of those.

I think we can have both things happening at the same time, where we are moving ahead with the Deh Cho negotiations, at the same time as the pipeline pre-approval activities are going on over the next two or three years. There have not been negotiations with the Deh Cho since November, when the court cases were filed, so it has been frustrating for everybody that there is no progress being made right now.

There are a number of areas, as the Member has mentioned, that are under negotiation. Environmental management regulation is certainly a piece of it; that includes how the lawmaking authority is going to be settled there. There is the MVRMA boards and process and how that will come together. The Crown lands and waters are certainly areas that are being considered for devolution, which includes the administration and control of federal Crown lands, surface and subsurface, and authority to collect resource royalties and revenues and so on. Administration and control of water and whatever other associated powers are under section 92 (a).

I might emphasize, Mr. Chairman, that some processes, such as the MVRMA, are not -- I think the federal government has made that pretty clear -- going to create another process, but, again, that is their position at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That is fine now, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As Mr. Menicoche highlighted when he read the report, the area that rose up from our briefing with the Minister on this was the growth in separate fields, Mr. Chairman. The mandate and the role of IGRASP, as relates to the mandate and the role of Aboriginal Affairs; the crossover and overlap that these two agencies were starting to see.

Also, Mr. Chairman, as the report details to some extent, the creation or jockeying of senior deputy positions to try to accommodate this. The recommendation that committee has made here, Mr. Chairman, is that we would like the Premier to come back in the next business plans with options to reprofile the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs and IGRASP, to see if there is a way of streamlining what does appear to be sort of concurrent mandates going up in different regions.

What I wanted to ask the Premier, Mr. Chairman, was whether he sees that this is an area where we could do with some streamlining or some re-profiling. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is always room to streamline and if we can find areas to do it in, then we will do that. We certainly take seriously the committee's recommendation that we look at how we can integrate IGRASP and Aboriginal Affairs and for that reason, I have not appointed another deputy minister for Aboriginal Affairs. Rather, I have asked Mr. McLeod to assume both roles; not both salaries, but both roles.

We have been doing it that way and I intend, as soon as we have time to do this -- and I hope we can do that this summer -- to start doing some work on how we could integrate the IGRASP and MAA so it all becomes an intergovernmental affairs department, whether it is aboriginal government, provincial government, federal government and so on. We are looking at that, we heard the committee loud and clear and we will continue to work in that direction.

Mr. Chairman, I would say that there is less room for streamlining with Aboriginal Affairs and Executive and so on than you might have in other departments, because a lot of our core services are already integrated. For example, finance and administration is just one section that provides services for Executive, for FMBS, for Aboriginal Affairs, so there is no savings there. The savings would be primarily, I suppose, at the senior management level there may be some positions, but these are both small departments; they are not going to save us millions of dollars.

One other comment I want make, Mr. Chairman, is with regard to the associate deputy minister position we have created in IGRASP -- even though we are not doing the Executive, Members have referred to it -- that one is partly because of the workload and responsibilities that people have to carry and the fact that I have one deputy acting for two departments, so just the workload and the responsibility. The other piece is that this is also a way of getting females into senior management positions. The associate deputy minister, Gabriella Sparling, is basically taking on many of the responsibilities we would normally give to a deputy. That is one way of doing that, as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the discussion. I guess, Mr. Chairman, I wanted to double check with the Premier that the committee more or less has it right. We aren’t misreading or misinterpreting some of the actions that have been taken and we are not totally off base in recommending that. At least from our side of the fence, we do see a number of similarities coming through here and we found it confusing; mandates that were seemingly quite similar and seemed to involve a lot of the same people and the same outside organizations, but yet were being handled in different places.

As long as the committee hasn’t fundamentally misread something, then I look forward, Mr. Chairman, to something later on this summer, if I heard the Premier right this time, perhaps a more combined intergovernmental affairs shop. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, I think the committee is right and we are looking at that and, in fact, there are sections -- I think the main one is the policy and communication section -- where we may be able to integrate those responsibilities between IGRASP and MAA into one section, even before we get into the business plans for the next fiscal year, 2006-07.

Where we can, we will begin, but, Mr. Chairman, the committee’s recommendation is fair and one that we respect. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Braden.

That is it. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. I have Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to make just a few brief comments here with regard to the opening remarks by the Minister. It’s good to see that he is working with the Inuvialuit, the Gwich’in, the Sahtu and the Tlicho people.

In his opening remarks, the Minister indicated that the department is responsible for coordinating and overseeing the GNWT-wide implementation of settlement agreements. I am just wondering if there is any money coming from the GNWT or are the feds putting all the money in for implementation of these plans. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, the money that I referred to in the opening remarks, the $313,000, is money that is flowed to us from the Government of Canada to fund three positions for implementing the Inuvialuit, Gwich’in and Sahtu land claim agreements. So that is federal money. But in terms of implementing the agreements, we also, as a government, spend a considerable amount of money implementing all of the articles in the agreements that are within our mandate. For example, in forestry or wildlife we contribute substantially through the various departments, not through this department. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can the Minister tell me exactly how much money the federal government is putting into the implementation or coordinating and overseeing the implementation of the settlement agreements? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I don’t have a number for how much the federal government would provide to the Inuvialuit, the Gwich’in and the Sahtu directly themselves, but what I have only is the amount of money that they flow through us, which is the $313,000. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Can I ask the Minister then, is that $313,000 enough for the three positions to operate, manage and coordinate the implementation? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, the $313,000 is the amount they give us and we’re managing within that amount. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’ll go back now to the Sahtu Final Agreement. I’m just wondering, in his opening remarks the Minister also indicated that it includes a substantial increase in operations funding for various Sahtu claims and boards. Will that money come out of the GNWT or will that be from the federal government? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, that would be federal money. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you. Just one more quick one here. Does that include the Tlicho Implementation Agreement, too? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, no, it doesn’t include the Tlicho. The Tlicho money would begin to flow August 4th during the coming into effect date. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Further general comments. I’d like to show committee we’re on page 2-95. We’ll pass over 2-95 and come back to that one. We’ll start on 2-99, Aboriginal Affairs, operations expenditure summary, $8.198 million.

Agreed.

Page 2-101, Aboriginal Affairs, grants and contributions, grants, total grants, $300,000.

Agreed.

Contributions continues on to page 2-102, Aboriginal Affairs, grants and contributions, total contributions, $1.63 million.

Agreed.

Total grants and contributions, $1.93 million.

Agreed.