Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Premier and it gets back to some of the questions that I had last week when it comes to devolution and resource revenue sharing. I just wanted to follow up a little bit on that, if I could. I’ve spoken in the past about the approach the Government of the Northwest Territories is taking to devolution and I’m wondering why the Government of the Northwest Territories wouldn’t look at an incremental approach to devolution, specifically in the area of minerals, oil and gas. I’d like to ask the Premier that question. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The process that’s been engaged by previous governments and the process we picked up on was one that included a package combination of devolution and resource revenue sharing. It engaged the aboriginal leadership across the Territories. We started off on that footing, as well, and looked for an additional infrastructure commitment from the federal government attached to that. That’s the process we would go. If we want to change the approach, then we would have to relook at that file to see if, in fact, we wanted to take it down, as we have in the past. For example, when health and social services was transferred to the Northwest Territories, transportation and so on. Thank you.
Yes, with health and transportation, those are areas of our operation that cost us money. When I talk about minerals, oil and gas, those are areas of our operation where, if done properly and we get control over those areas, we could actually benefit, fiscally benefit from the federal government devolving those responsibilities to the Government of the Northwest Territories.
Last week I also mentioned the fact that it’s close to $300 million that the federal government is currently taking in resource revenue from the Northwest Territories. So I’d like to ask the Premier, if it does take us changing gears, how could that happen? Would he engage the aboriginal leaders across the Territory and we could go after minerals, oil and gas with the aboriginal governments’ say in that as well? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, indeed, the approach would be through the regional leaders table that we’ve established. Our next meeting will be later on during this month and the devolution and resource revenue sharing re-engagement with the federal government will be one of the items we’ll be having discussions on. Thank you.
Again, the reason this is becoming important, we’re talking recently about changes to the diamond policy area and the fact that the Government of the Northwest Territories really doesn’t have a leg to stand on when it comes to trying to ensure that the producing mines here in the Territory offer up the value-added industry that we’re trying to support as a government. So, again, I’d like to ask the Premier, will the Premier put that item on the agenda when the regional leaders meet again in November? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I would say that, number one, through our socio-economic agreements with the industry, we have secured a supply of rough diamonds potentially for our own secondary industry and that’s why it’s been going on for as long as it has. Secondly, the commitment to sit down at the regional leaders table, I did make that. We are going to be sitting down with them later on this month and re-engagement of devolution and resource revenue sharing will be one of the items that we will have discussion on so we can incorporate just to what level we’d like to see that re-engagement happen on. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Your final supplementary, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, my questions last week and questions again today are based on the fact that I just don’t see us making any progress. I’d like to ask the Premier, how are we going to ensure that in the next two years we see some progress on these files, specifically on minerals, oil and gas and the devolution of those responsibilities to the Government of the Northwest Territories? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, number one, there has not been an initiative specifically on minerals, oil and gas. The devolution and resource revenue sharing has been a package put together, and at some point we’ll have to discuss if we even keep those two packages together. But this will take a discussion at the regional leaders table, because as has been shown in the past, without the support of regional leaders, the federal government isn’t too keen on moving forward, either without ourselves as the GNWT at the table or without regional leaders at the table. So the partnership approach is the best one and we’re working on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. The honourable Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Krutko.
