Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I mentioned in my Member’s statement that I have a few concerns about the search that the Premier is on to find a vision for the NWT. In my experience and in my view, a vision, when it’s written down, is usually about three or four lines of text, and the questions that are part of the Premier’s process are very broad, very vague, and that’s, as I mentioned, the answers that we have gathered, or the Premier has gathered, are a very broad range. It leads to my concern about how we are going to end up with a vision from the results of these forums.
Any time we enter into consultation, I think it’s acknowledged by Members, it’s acknowledged by the public that there’s a cost involved. We’ve gone through five forums, I think, to date, and I think there may be a couple more yet to come. So there’s obviously a cost involved. I know that the Assembly approved a budget for this particular exercise, the Northern Leaders Forum exercise, but I don’t know whether or not the Creating Our Future was part of this exercise. So to the Premier I’d like to know: What is the cost of this Creating Our Future exercise that he has embarked on, what will it cost by the time it’s done, and how much of the, I think, $860,000 that the Assembly approved is being used for this exercise? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member is right; the budget was approved by this Assembly and we’re operating within that budget. A portion of that has been allocated to the aboriginal governments for their work in that area and we’re gathering all the information between not just the forums but the mail-outs, the website, and seeking all that from individuals as well, and by sitting down with the aboriginal leadership. We’re targeting the end of November to pull that work together and discuss at that point how we would proceed to, for example, how we bring that work back to this Assembly and this House for discussion and how aboriginal leadership may take that work as well and use it in their efforts. Thank you.
Thank you to the Premier for that information. It kind of leads into my next question. I was going to ask what are the next steps that the Premier is going to take to take all of this information to get to a vision. He referenced the Northern Leaders Forum, and I guess I still need to know how the Premier expects that these forums that we’ve engaged in will lead us to a vision. Will we have a vision that gets to the Northern Leaders Forum and then they will bring their visions and then they start all over again? So, you know, who’s taking these next steps and what are they going to be? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, we brought forward this idea of reaching out to the people of the North, building a common vision between aboriginal governments, public government, the future of the Territories, and it was through that work we brought the request for funds. Through that work we came up with a process of using some of that for the aboriginal governments to do their work and, of course, for our work. But as we talk about that future of how we build and how we go forward, that work, as I had stated, we are going to get together and pool all of the work that has gone on, the information we receive from the forums, from individuals who are responding to the website, individuals who are responding to the mail-out, and pull that together with the aboriginal governments’ work, discuss at that level what possibilities can flow out of that, how do we pull it together, and I will be bringing that work back to the Members of this Assembly. Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the Premier mentioned beyond just the forums. There have been mail-outs to people who have wanted to send their comments in by mail. There’s been an on-line survey that’s been ongoing. So there’s any number of responses other than what’s summarized from the five or so forums that are the Premier’s website. I’m really concerned that… I guess I need to know again from the Premier, I didn’t hear an answer to how are all those broad answers, ideas, suggestions, specific ideas, specific actions relative to programs, how in heaven’s name is the Premier going to take those and condense them down into something that can be laid at the feet of all the members of the Northern Leaders Forum for, I guess, a constructive discussion? Thank you.
Much like what Members of the Legislative Assembly do every time there’s an election and they gather together to form a vision for this Assembly itself, we will do similar. As we pull their work, there will be similar areas, whether it is around economic development, whether it is around our environment, whether it is around our government structures. As I stated in my sessional statement today, some of those key areas that we’re working on revolve around those very issues and how we can work together to promote a common vision that we could use as northern governments in our approach to, for example, the federal government. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Premier for that explanation. I guess I still have my concerns that any time you take a huge amount of information and condense it down into something smaller, which is what that sounds like this is going to be, that an awful lot of it gets lost. You know, there’s the wheat and the chaff and I think a lot of this information is going to become chaff.
The Premier mentioned that the Northern Leaders Forum will meet at the end of November. I’d like to know, once this vision is developed from whatever comes to the table at the Northern Leaders Forum, will that vision that comes out of there be made public and when will it be made public? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, the area of the work that’s being done at the Northern Leaders Forum, which we do have involvement from Regular Members, we will pull that work together, we will come up with options of how we proceed. How much of that, for example, will be run through this forum, being the public government, the process for it and what type of recommendations... Do they get debated, for example, in this Assembly? Do we put it out there for more comments? Our goal is to come back in June of the upcoming year for discussion by this Assembly as how we would progress on those key areas and adopting the work that has been done. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
