Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Premier, and they are with regard to the PanTerritorial Vision on Sustainable Development and the Arctic Policy Framework. I don't recall there being any public consultations on the panterritorial vision. Can the Premier confirm that for me? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. The Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The three northern Premiers worked together as part of the Northern Premiers Forum to develop this panterritorial vision. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I would like to thank the Premier for confirming that there was no public consultation with regard to the development of that statement. I have had a chance to look at it. It is supposed to be about sustainable development. You could actually take the word "sustainable" out and just replace it with "resources." There is nothing in the document, really, with regard to sustainability.
The classic definition of "sustainability" is to make sure that things that we do today do not take away from opportunities for future generations. It is about intergenerational equity. The Premier himself has talked about balancing economy and environment. Why is there nothing in the document about sustainability in the PanTerritorial Vision on Sustainable Development?
As I said earlier in response to the Member for Yellowknife North's question, the three northern Premiers were very concerned about the report of the Ministerial Special Representative of the Minister of Indigenous Affairs Canada. She was commissioned to consult with stakeholders and governments through the Arctic, and the terms of reference focused primarily on conservation.
When she met with the Premiers, we felt that the request for increased sustainable development was not reflected in the report. We felt that significant work had been done in developing conservation and protected areas. We have significant amounts of parks, and the focus of the report that they worked on was marine protected areas.
We felt it was important to have this PanTerritorial Vision for Sustainable Development that we felt would balance the report which was going to be used as the centrepiece for the Arctic Policy Framework.
I want to thank the Premier for that. I am certainly more than a bit disappointed to hear that our government has basically rejected the work, then, that was done by the ministerial special representative.
Of course, sustainable development is more than just about resources; it's about people, things like cultural sustainability, Indigenous language and cultural revitalization, social sustainability, recognizing the roles and contributions of business and civil society. Is there going to be some incorporation of these ideas of cultural sustainability, social sustainability, into the NWT chapter of the Arctic Policy Framework?
When the Prime Minister and President Obama announced their parallel moratoriums in the Beaufort Sea, the Prime Minister announced that the fact that, when we raised it, there was no accompanying economic development strategy to deal with the fact that we were being asked to leave billions or trillions of dollars' worth of oil and gas in the ground, there was no accompanying economic development strategy to provide jobs for the people of the Northwest Territories. He said, "Well, don't worry about it, we're going to have a clean growth job strategy, you still have tourism, you have fisheries," and so, that's what our concern was about.
So we thought the Arctic Policy Framework would be focused entirely on jobs and diversifying our economy. The fact that the Member would like to see us in two languages, culture and so on, it was not my understanding how it would work, but if, as I said, if the round tables that we will be hosting where the primary recommendations is that the Arctic Policy Framework should be focused on languages and culture, then we will approach it on that basis.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. Thanks to the Premier for that, of course. I'm not suggesting that that be the sole and exclusive focus of the document. I want to make sure that sustainability is incorporated into it. It's offered as genuine input, and I hope that he'll take me up on the offer of including that sort of information and perspectives into the document. It's not just about resource development, and nor should it be.
I have another question for the Minister: is he committed, then, to sharing drafts of the chapters as it is being put together with Regular MLAs and keeping us updated on progress and development of the chapters? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
We had a very good discussion at InterGovernmental Council, where all the Aboriginal governments that participated and signed in to devolution were very supportive of working together and developing the Arctic Policy Framework. We have committed to holding round tables throughout the North with all of the different stakeholders. Certainly, we will be pleased to share drafts of the documents as we go forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.
