Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are addressed to the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs and the Premier. I would like to say to the Premier, having been deluged, I guess, with questions a couple of days ago, many differing opinions on the AIP and people telling him what to do and so on, I’d like to know whether or not the Premier is open to making changes to the communications plan that we heard about the other day. Has he considered making any changes, and if he has not to this date, will he consider making changes to be a little more personal in his approach to our residents? Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In fact, since responding to questions earlier in the week on the agreement-in-principle, the approach we have looked at we have been revising as we’ve gone forward, taking in the comments made by Members. We are looking towards offering up to go into communities and have a team established that we will be able to go into the communities to explain the AIP, as it is, on top of our communications in Aboriginal languages going into the homes across the North, as well, and on top of that, the householder, as well. We are working on a number of fronts and we’ve revised the letter I said that we would try to get out, and my earlier response to regional leaders, we have changed that letter now and it’s being revised again to offer them an opportunity to meet in the regions with all the chiefs and go into communities as well. Thank you.
I would like to thank the Premier for the response. I am gratified to hear that Members are being heard, that residents are being heard and that there is going to be a change to the approach to getting information out there and educating our residents.
I’d like to ask the Premier, if we are going into communities, and I’d like to state again we need to go to every community. We can’t just hold these meetings in regional centres; every community deserves the right to have a meeting and to hear these explanations. When the Premier and/or his team or a portion of a team goes to a community, what type of community meetings is the Premier planning on holding? Thank you.
We’d be prepared to hold public information meetings with the community, the leadership and residents within the community. It is about trying to get as much information out to people so that they can understand what this document is and what it means as we go forward. Thank you.
Good information to hear and I’m glad to hear that. I would hope that in any meeting, that the government would be open at a community meeting to hearing from both sides, and that if an Aboriginal leader, a regional leader or a community leader wishes to be there to speak to the issue, that they would be able to have the opportunity to do that.
One of the other things that the Premier mentioned is that he is sending a letter to regional leaders to invite them to come back to the process, so to speak. I have to ask myself why would they do that. What can we say to leaders at this point that is going to want them to come back to this table? I guess I need to ask the Premier, and I have to state as well, that I think, to me, the letter is the most formal method of communication that we have. So to the Minister, to the Premier: what is he doing at this point, apart from the letter to regional leaders, to try and mend these broken bridges? Thank you.
I think the language we use here, it sometimes can help inflame the situation that we find ourselves in, to a certain degree. Not all of the regions are in disagreement. We know some are right now planning to hold some of their meetings. We’re in communications with them on a number of fronts around the devolution process and again offer up the meetings. We do have to follow up with a formal process. So there are calls going on to stay in touch and keep in touch with what some of the regions are planning, what they are saying out there or what we are hearing. But we will follow up formally with the letters, as I stated, with some of the revisions that I mentioned earlier.
As we look towards the future and do what we can within the next number of days and weeks, looking at trying to schedule those community meetings that we can and get some acceptance of, we’re prepared to go in and have these information meetings so that people will be fully informed as we progress in our work plan as the Government of the Northwest Territories.
I think it is important to also recognize that as we’ve offered up through this whole process that at times there may not be agreement on some of the key issues. Some of the issues raised by some of the leaders as we’ve responded to are matters outside of the devolution of the authorities, right now practices by the federal government. They’re more matters of self-government negotiations or of amending land claims agreements, which this devolution agreement is not intended to do. We have to get that type of information out to the public as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Premier for his statement, I guess. I appreciate the information. I certainly had no intention to inflame. It’s simply a query that has entered into my head and I’m glad to hear the Premier say that there are phone calls going on so there is some personal touch that’s happening with regional leaders. The more of that that happens, the better, in my mind.
One last question, Mr. Speaker, and it has to do with the scheduled meeting for the Northern Leaders’ Forum in March. I wonder if the Premier could advise what the purpose of that meeting is. Thank you.
The Northern Leaders’ Forum is a side table to the regional leaders’ meetings that we had, we established, inviting other participants to be a part of the work we were doing on building a common vision. At our recent meeting we were presented materials from the Inuvialuit and the Metis, as well as the Association of Municipalities, and we are pulling that information together. Our response now is with that material. We’re sending it back to all of the participants, even those that were not there, as they were provided funds to be a part of this and we hope that although they were preoccupied with the days up to the agreement-in-principle, that they’ve got information that they can share or at least provide feedback on the information we have received. The basis of that meeting is to have that response from them as well as the others that did provide a formal response, to look at the next steps as we go forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
