Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, want to just follow up with Mr. Menicoche’s questions in terms of the leadership meeting in Fort Simpson with the Dene Nation national chiefs. Listening from the communities, the reception, what I’m hearing is that it wasn’t very good to have our government Ministers not there at a very important meeting with the leadership. It didn’t seem that this government here cared to sit down with the chiefs, to listen to them, especially on the issue of caribou. It was quite volatile. I want to ask the Premier, the Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, in terms of leadership meetings such as the Dene Nation Leadership Meeting, is there a policy that at these type of meetings that you’ll have several Ministers at these meetings to listen to the chiefs on some of these important issues.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Premier, Mr. Roland.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The process we have in place for meetings with aboriginal governments and leaders is, one, first and foremost, that is really formally structured now. The regional aboriginal leadership meetings are attended by the seven regions and the grand chiefs and presidents of those aboriginal governments. As well, when advance time is given and we’re requested to be on the agenda, we would have the appropriate Minister -- if they can’t be in attendance, the appropriate deputy minister -- to present what has been requested. In the case, for example, of the Beaufort-Delta regional leaders, the practice has been months in advance they make the request that we be in attendance. They actually request the Ministers and put them on the agenda to make presentations at the meeting. We do that with the Gwich’in leaders. At the regional leaders table we, as well, have a joint initiative where the regional leaders can put items on the agenda, along with ourselves, and we have the appropriate Ministers show up at those. We continue to work with those. Along the side the regional leaders’ meetings, we’ve made a commitment as the Government of the Northwest Territories that we will have a bilateral with the grand chief and the chiefs of a region on an annual basis as well. So when they make that request, we set up to do that.
When you have over 30 chiefs sitting there, these are the level of aboriginal governments that are going to be established in the Northwest Territories. We’re asking another government to participate. I’m asking the Minister or the Premier in terms of is it something that is going to be a policy where when you have 30 chiefs sitting down, that the Premier or the Cabinet would send one or two Ministers to be there out of courtesy to sit with another level of government.
We have a process in place now that we meet with the regional leadership and have a bilateral process. In fact, as I just said earlier, we just finished a meeting with regional leaders in November and we’re already into planning preparations for the end of March with the regional leaders. So it takes a long time to get the agendas together, to get the necessary information together, so that we can have these meetings. We will do the same in advance notice of the Dene Leadership Meetings. There are many examples where we have Ministers and myself who have been to the leadership meetings to make presentations as well. It’s just unfortunate that the notice came late and we already had commitments by the Ministers that had invitations. When you look at the agenda, there was no request, we were not on the agenda as Ministers making presentations.
When you have 30 leaders, 30 chiefs sitting down, it’s just obvious that this government should send one or two Ministers to a meeting out of courtesy to listen to the chiefs. Sometimes we don’t go by an agenda. Sometimes the issues come outside the agenda. It’s just obvious that this government, as leaders, attend a national territorial leadership meeting. Again, I want to ask the Premier in terms of not a process, but is there some type of policy that in the future that Ministers would be attending the Dene national chiefs meeting.
We make every effort to attend the aboriginal leadership meetings across the Northwest Territories. We can provide the information of how many meetings we have attended. It is important that we work together on that basis. That is why, for example, we’re trying to solidify an ongoing relationship that is put in place and recognized at the regional leaders’ table. For example, the last meeting we tabled -- the example is the Council of the Federation -- that with the regional leaders. We hope to build on that going forward.
Thank you, Premier Roland. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Sometimes when important meetings are called about such issues as the caribou, it’s very important to people in my region here. It would seem that it would be a given that the Minister of at least ENR or another Minister attend this meeting with some heavy discussions here. Again, it’s called meeting some of the needs of our people here. I would ask again if it’s a policy of this government or Cabinet can be looked at and see if future meetings can be attended by some of the Ministers as a standard policy.
First and foremost we are putting in place the relationship that we have with regional leaders. Mr. Bill Erasmus is involved in that by notification of our meetings, the agendas and so on. We have been, for example in Lutselk’e at that Dene Assembly there, attended with a number of our Ministers, including myself. When we’re given enough notice, we try to be as flexible as possible and we’ll continue to do that. I’ll sit down with the Dene national chief, Bill Erasmus, to talk about a process we can set in place and that hopefully he can provide us enough lead time so we can work on making sure we have appropriate representation. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Roland. Colleagues, I’m going to request that you consider keeping your questions and answers maybe a little bit shorter. We’ll be lucky to get eight Members to ask questions at the rate we’re going today so… The honourable Member for Tu Nedhe, Mr. Beaulieu.
