Madam Speaker, the other night I was watching the news and after years of Iran failing to come to the table to negotiate a nuclear deal, I heard the lead negotiator on that file say they expected a deal within one year. And Madam Speaker, I thought let's hire that guy to settle some land claims.
Madam Speaker, the time, all across Canada in fact, not just the GNWT problem, to conclude a land claim agreement is getting longer and longer. They are becoming slower and slower to negotiate and as the time period gets longer, the number of leaders involved in each negotiating gets longer, only exasperating the problem.
I believe the root of this cause is many. There is a little bit of blame on all parties and probably a lot to blame on lawyers like me who have turned it into a largely technocratic exercise that can take years as opposed to a political one about nation building. Madam Speaker, but I do believe that if we had the political will we could move much faster in this area. In fact we negotiated devolution, the single largest land transfer in Canadian history, much quicker than we have negotiated any other agreement.
I note there are different factors all around but, Madam Speaker, I believe that we need to take a new approach and press reset. We need to look at all of our negotiating mandates in light of devolution, all of our government agreements in light of the powers we now hold, and have a whole scale rewrite. I believe that we need third party review of this, preferably a third party who has actually settled some agreements. I know there are a lot of exChiefs and exnegotiators in this territory who would love to see those mandates and provide some insight.
I believe it's worth noting that I have never seen a negotiating mandate. I have never been been at a negotiating table so everything I say is to be taken with a grain of salt. But there are people in this territory who know how to actually get these things done, and it has been far too long.
Madam Speaker, you we have a suite of policies, whether it be the land lease only policy, land withdrawals, and various other policies that are, in theory, meant to help us assist in settling the unsettled claims but I think that we have to ask ourselves if whether those are actually hindrance. If everything meeting that my Cabinet colleagues goes to is about cabin lease taxes, I think that a hindrance to actually getting these claims done. I believe we know need a wholesale review with third party and public input on what we are negotiating and what we are willing to give up in light of our implementation of UNDRIP and our commitment to get this done as an Assembly. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Member. Members' statements. Member for Nunakput.
