Thank you, Madam Chair. With calls across the country to return land to Indigenous governments and really at the heart of our standing land claims is a question about land. I was hoping the Premier could provide some insight.
Thank you, Member. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. As the Member stated, it's not an easy answer. It would be easy to say 10 percent, 50 percent, 75 percent, but it's not as easy as that. It all depends on the difference negotiations. So I'm going to try to explain some of it and of course offer a briefing to standing committee for more technical if they wish that, but the comparison of land quantum in claims can't be looked at in one area because there's negotiation process. Some take more cash, some takes more lands, some take more subsurface.
The other consideration we have to take when we look at settled lands and nonsettled land is land that is publicly administered by the GNWT, land administered by municipalities, land that's owned in fee simple, land that's administrated by the federal government, and land that might be part of a national park or other conservation area. So, again and the other thing that's really comes into play as well is when some Indigenous governments in their negotiations are looking at exclusively Indigenous governments, which means only settled claims for their people, members of their people, and others are more inclusive in their provisions so they want to provide services to all the general public. Of course, all those factors have to be taken into consideration.
So, again, we're really flexible within that, depending on the needs, the region, the communities. Also overlapping lands. There's a number of lands where it's not just one Indigenous government; it's multiIndigenous governments that have claims in for those lands so all that has to be taken into consideration. So there's no one size fits all.
But I think that it is worth noting, Madam Speaker, that in the NWT, our agreements are among the largest in the whole of the country in terms of land quantum, and I think that's where we are in regards to working with Indigenous governments in the NWT, is very progressive and sets an example for the whole of Canada and perhaps the whole of the world. So, again, it's not as easy an answer as I'd like it to be but if we will offer standing committee a briefing on it as well, a technical briefing. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Chair. I understand that it's complicated. I guess part of the concern I hear from Indigenous governments is it's the only reason we have the land is devolution before and, you know, I think there's been a lot of criticism about having a third party at the table. And I guess my question is now that devolution is a bit of a defacto completion, is the agreement to sign on to devolution, and I think probably more importantly the corresponding royalty split, a condition for any future land claims as far as the GNWT is concerned?
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I know that Members don't like me to us to say no in the House, but no, is not a condition of settling land claims. Land claims are separate. So devolution is a table. Many members have there's a mixture. Some have land claim settled, some have selfgovernment settled, and some people are in the process and some are not even wanting to. So the devolution table is a table for all people to share royalties, to talk about land and resources and how we codevelop acts and regulations going forward, and every Indigenous government is welcomed to come to the table. Thank you.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would also appreciate any insight to whether we have updated our selfgovernment mandates. My current understanding is that there's hundreds of pages which form the selfgovernment mandate. There's a chapter on every single topic imaginable from health to education to government services. I mean, I have never seen any of this but I'm wondering if, given devolution, given the commitment to UNDRIP, whether a full rewrite of looking at all of the selfgovernment mandates is occurring or has occurred? Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. A full rewrite of all them, you're right, it's a very big document; I think close a thousand pages and there are chapters on each area. The Member is correct in that as well. So it's not as easy as we're not looking at rewriting the whole thing. What we are looking at is building trust and being more transparent in this government. I know that the federal government does share their principles and interests around negotiations, and so we're saying why wouldn't we. You know, we do need to look at things like comparability, fairness, etcetera. But those things should be shared publicly. We take a lot of hits in the House. We take a lot of hits in the NWT saying that we're not reasonable, we're not fair. And so I do think, Madam Speaker, that by sharing our principles and interests of the mandates will actually outline that to people, and people know what they're dealing with. It's better for all of us going forward. Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Premier. Final supplementary, Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I would really appreciate if we shared some of those principles. I feel like asking questions about something I can't see is a bit of a search in the dark.
One of our commitments is to implement UNDRIP. To date, this House has seen no regulations. I don't believe there's been a single Cabinet policy change and certainly no legislation has changed to reflect UNDRIP. So my question for the Premier is what has been done to implement UNDRIP to date, or what are we doing to implement UNDRIP? Thank you, Madam Speaker.
Thank you, Madam Speaker. I think that the implementation of the United Nations declaration was a priority of this government, and I take it to heart. Many of the chapters within the declaration talk about "this shall be done by Indigenous people", and so I've taken that to heart, and I think that all Indigenous governments agree with me 100 percent. So right as soon as we began, we one of the finer things that we've done in this government, that we've never done before, we've always had the intergovernmental council that looks at land and resources. That was the last government's initiatives. However, this government has brought forward more. We have two other tables that we work with the Modern Treaty and Selfgovernment table and the Council of Leaders, which every Indigenous government sits at. So within the Council of Leaders where all governments are, they've insisted that we tackle the United Nations declaration. They're not waiting for the Legislative Assembly. They're taking it to heart, that this is about them.
So within that, within the Council of Leaders, there's what's called a secretariat. And so it's a working group, members, officials from all governments. We are one member of that council so we have one official. Every Indigenous government has an official as well. So that working group of officials has just recently established they brought it forward to the Council of Leaders table which was two weeks ago, I believe. Life goes fast. And the Council of Leaders have supported the recommended approach on the next steps to implement the declaration.
So four key points that the Council of Leaders have agreed that we will work towards is.
The co-developing of a law that implements the United Nations declaration in the Northwest Territories;
To establish a memorandum of understanding with Indigenous governments towards the development of the law;
To set a timeline for this work; and,
To provide the ability for Indigenous governments to continue to make recommendations towards implementation.
Thank you, Madam Premier. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.
