Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Recently, I attended the only northern public hearing on Bill C-15 here in Yellowknife. Bill C-15 implements our devolution deal with Canada, but it also includes big changes to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. All our Aboriginal government partners and public interest groups said the same thing, “The changes to the MVRMA have nothing to do with devolution so remove them from this bill.” They also said, “Do not collapse the regional land and water boards into one super-board.” But not our Premier, who seemingly accepts losing our voice as an acceptable cost of devolution.
I have to ask, what is the point of devolution if our Premier will not stand up and support the people of the Northwest Territories whose concerns were crystal clear?
The changes to the MVRMA in Bill C-15 do matter, so let’s acknowledge this and consider what we can do to help. Let’s begin by sponsoring a public discussion with our Aboriginal partners to identify what steps we can make to make a lousy situation better.
Perhaps, as a newly constituted authoritative government, we could offer to support the establishment of staffed regional offices that would maintain regional capacity and a basis for ensuring meaningful regional input into land and water management structures. With the federal election next year, let’s prepare to lobby for re-establishing regional boards, should a new political party take power with a willingness to do so. Hopefully this time it could go forward on an evidence-based process as opposed to an ideological basis.
With this strategy, and given that Bill C-15 amendments will not be implemented for a year from this April, there would be less than a year with loss of the regional voices before we could repair this damage.
This government purports to seek authority put into the hands of Northerners. These suggested actions would show that the GNWT does, in fact, support our Aboriginal partners and our residents and ensures the capacity and real opportunity for meaningful input into decisions affecting their own land, water and resources. Our Premier can take leadership on this. Will he?
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
