Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently, of course, we were all elected to represent our constituents. Shortly after that we had an exercise that set the priorities and goals of trying to work together and trying to achieve some of the concerns and issues that our constituents have raised. Working together is a common survival instinct, especially for us here in the Northwest Territories. This government is founded on that very principle that we need to work together, we need to work out our differences. This process that we call consensus is a unique feature of this government. We pride ourselves that the system can work. I’d like to believe that this is a unique system that can, indeed, work in terms of sorting out our differences. My question is to the Premier today. I want to know in terms of what his vision is of building consensus with Aboriginal governments.
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess the approach that we’ve been taking is to reach out to all the Aboriginal governments to find a way to establish better working relationships by finding common ground. We think the best way to do that is to go out and meet with them and to identify what the basis of our relationship should be and how we should work together, and if there are any interests to formalize that arrangement, we’d be prepared to look at that as well.
I thank the Premier for that. Recently we witnessed two processes. One of them was the Aboriginal Summit in terms of bringing all the Aboriginal groups together from the Mackenzie Valley, at the same time ensuring that the governments were involved through the Intergovernmental Forum. That process basically put forth some key elements in terms of what we call devolution, at that time. What is different about this devolution process than that initial process back then?
I think the Aboriginal Summit and Intergovernmental Forum, I think both of those processes at the end were dismissed and disbanded because they weren’t fulfilling the objectives that they were set up for. We’re taking a much more careful approach this time.
My final question to the Premier is: At what point – I understand there’s negotiations and there’s also process ability consensus – can we have to step back and say how do we consider conflict resolution? How do we perhaps bring a sense of mediation in terms of bringing groups together? At what point would the Premier call into those conferences to ensure that we do indeed have consensus at the end of this process?
Our intention was, in follow-up through the Caucus meeting that was held in Detah with the seven Aboriginal government leaders, that it was our intention to pull together what we feel that we’ve heard and what we’ve discussed with the Aboriginal governments and that we would all sit together and put forward some indication of what we had heard, what the government would be proposing and use that as the basis for a follow-up meeting and for further discussion with the Aboriginal governments. Our expectation was to look at doing something in the next two to three months, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
