Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have some questions today I would like to address to the Premier. I have yet to weigh in to express an opinion on the devolution agreement-in-principle, which has been an issue for the last week or so. In general, I want to say that I agree with the agreement-in-principle, with the components, the elements that are in there. I think we probably should move forward on this.
I listened with great interest to the CBC Morning Show this morning as a former Premier made some comments on the agreement-in-principle. His comments triggered a few questions in my mind and I’d like to look to the Premier for some clarification.
The first comment was that we should not agree to a cap of 5 percent as indicated in the agreement-in-principle, but we should look to a cap that is equal to our transfer payments from the federal government. I’d like to ask the Premier, off the bat, if he could comment on whether or not, what his opinion is on our waiting for an agreement to get a cap that’s equal to our transfer payments.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. We’re getting into the contents of the AIP here, which is a document that’s not formally before the House. I’m going to caution Members to ask for details of the AIP. Mr. Roland, do you want to respond to Ms. Bisaro’s question? Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I must say that I did not hear that interview, at least this morning when I was having my coffee, otherwise I might have burned myself, I guess, in the surprise that a former Premier would wade back into the political arena. I didn’t know that the federal campaign for the Western Arctic had started yet, but maybe that’s the case and he’s priming for that or something. Simply the facts that were there, I guess that’s the danger that we all face. When we leave this place our memories tend to lapse a bit.
The fact is the previous government put in place and signed off an agreement that got sent to Ottawa that had some support of aboriginal governments that laid out some parameters. I understand, in looking at that interview, that was done, there was some reflection on some of those numbers. The simple fact, as we talked about our process, what we’ve been presented with and what we have to look at is, is this the same as other agreements across the country? I can say, without a doubt, that the process we’re in falls within what other provinces have signed through their programs within the government.
Thanks to the Premier. The other comment that was made in the interview this morning was the dollar value of the agreement, and I believe the former Premier mentioned $85 million and that the agreement contains a figure of $65.5 million. The former Premier seemed to indicate that we should be holding off on this agreement-in-principle because we’re not making up that $20 million difference. I’d like to ask the Premier if he could comment on that comment.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. I’d also like to remind Members not to be referring to individuals who are not in the House to speak for themselves. Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Believe me, over the life of this government I have tried to respect that process. We do need to be careful. At the same time, I think, I know in my time when I leave this Assembly, the new Assembly that comes to do their work, I’ll leave them to do their work.
The numbers, unfortunately, that were used, again without the proper context, can spell a rather inflammatory process and response. As we have scheduled time with the committee around this, we hope that we’ll be able to supply all that information for Members to be aware.
The unfortunate part is we’ve got to deal with the public now that have heard information that they have nothing to balance that with. I must say that as governments in the past and as we’ve looked at this, we know that the base case and the business case for negotiation was put in place and that’s what the case was. What we’re looking at now is the best negotiation that could come forward and we’re faced with that work and need to make a decision on how we proceed.
It seems to me that we have reached this point or close to this point before where we seem to have an agreement. We seem to have an agreement here. We seem to have an agreement-in-principle that possibly could form the basis for us going forward and negotiating a final agreement. I’d like to ask the Premier, in the absence of… Sorry, there are some people who agree. There are other people who are quite negative about this agreement, that we should not go forward because we don’t have everybody involved, we don’t have the agreement of everybody. What is it about this particular situation where we are at this point in the evolution of the NWT and the evolution of our, sort of, life as a Territory, what is it that makes it so important that we go forward at this particular time? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, why is it so important that we proceed at this time? Well, I think there’s a long history of talking about development and grabbing the authority from Ottawa and bring it to the North, and sharing the powers amongst northern governments has been discussed for decades and we’ve come to a place now where, in fact, as I was speaking earlier today, this is not the first occasion that the Government of the Northwest Territories faced a situation of making a decision if we go forward or not. In fact, the 15th Assembly was in a very similar place and had a number of the groups sign on with the Government of the Northwest Territories and sent that in. If that was accepted at the time, we would actually be negotiating a final agreement at this time. That wasn’t done. In fact, I believe it allowed us more time to improve on the package that was signed off back then by the 15th Assembly.
We have come to a place, a time in the history of the Northwest Territories, when we talk about the future and what that may mean. If we just look at the examples that have happened, for example the JRP process, when you look at decisions that have been made around the Mackenzie potential, Mackenzie Gas Pipeline, when you look at the conditions that are put in place, right now those decisions are being made by others outside of our Territory. We talk about having that control. This provides that kind of control. Even during our Creating Our Future Together roundtables, the youth of the Northwest Territories were saying we need to get that authority and we need to bring it home. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Mr. Premier. I’d like to play a bit of a devil’s advocate, as I am wont to do sometimes, and if, as we get to the point of possibly signing this agreement-in-principle and we don’t have all of our partners on side and with us, or in terms of what the federal government is willing to offer us, they’re not offering us what we think we need and the amount of money that we need to go forward and manage ourselves from within, should we play hardball with the federal government in particular? Should we basically throw our hands up and walk away from the table? Thank you.
Some might say, in fact, that has been done in the past in the Northwest Territories when people say no, that’s not it, and walk away. We then talk about the revenues we left on the table, for example, as we have spoken with others in the past five years, we’ve left on the table $200 million of potential revenues that could have been a net benefit to northern governments.
As we were talking about earlier, in fact, a report that we just read earlier today highlights there’s going to be a need for more resources to implement any of those types of changes. In our environment today, we are unable to do those things within our own sources unless we take it from one department or one program to another. So that is the challenge we are faced with looking at that future of what can we do and make things happen in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
