Mr. Chairman, I need more clarification from the Minister with regard to the definitive objective pertaining to the Royal Commission. The department has objectives that would indicate that the department will coordinate all GNWT departments involved in an assessment of the final report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal People and would recommend a response strategy for Cabinet consideration. My understanding is that the final report is not even in the making yet. Definitive objectives are a one year thing that should be measured after the year is over. It is something that should be achieved with this budget year.

How can you put in an objective indicating this is what you're going to do when we don't even know when the Royal Commission's final report is going to be concluded? I need clarification as to what the department is saying here. What does it mean? How is the GNWT involved with the Royal Commission? Thank you.

Merci, Monsieur Zoe. Monsieur Ministre.

Thank you. I'm of the view that this is the year the Royal Commission is going to wrap up its work. In fact, it is starting to draft its final report. I can't tell you the specific date the report will be final, but I know that in some areas, they have pretty well wrapped up their work and it is a matter of drafting their final report. Certain sections may be finalized before others.

In any case, there will be recommendations made that will have implications for social services, health, housing, education, training, culture and for the ministry in the area of intergovernmental relations and certainly aboriginal issues. We've taken the lead from the beginning, as a ministry, to assist in coordinating and keeping abreast of the work that the commission is doing and to help provide input and information to the commission by working with other departments and agencies. That's the intent of this objective. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Zoe.

Mr. Chairman, another one of the definitive objectives of the Ministry of Intergovernmental and Aboriginal Affairs pertains to the community transfer initiative. They are going to establish, in cooperation with communities, a process to assess community capability to accept responsibility for the delivery of programs and services. We know that some communities have been favoured and given money to do work and others have been told they're not ready. I want to ask the Minister, what is the process and how do communities have a fair say in it to determine, as stated in your objectives, if they are capable of taking over programs and services?

Thank you, Mr. Zoe. Minister Kakfwi.

This is a rather sensitive point in the approach that our ministry is taking to talks with communities. It is difficult for us to tell you in very clear terms how we go about the assessment except to say that we try to set up a process that is done jointly.

First of all, you assess what it is that you want to do. For instance, if you want to take over housing, you assess and the community can do that itself. What is it that they have to do the job that is outlined jointly? Then, there is a discussion about what is required. For instance, we know that in some communities we have people who can do electrical work, plumbing and other maintenance work of a general nature. But, very often, in some housing associations, for instance, they may have no maintenance procedures or overall work plan on how to do maintenance in the long term. You may have workers who are capable, for instance, but at a management level you may require that you have management capability that would make sure doors are checked, for instance, not when they are hanging on the hinges, but as a periodic sort of maintenance approach. You may have a need for inventory of the equipment and update of equipment, for instance, hot water tanks. Unless you date them and have some replacement items after they hit the five year mark, if that at all, you run into difficulties. In the middle of winter, you may end up having to fly a whole lot in because they have all corroded in the same year. Without insulting anybody, you try to scope out how the federal or territorial DPW provides these services.

On the other hand, the housing maintenance associations, in many communities, have many things to offer this government in terms of how they go about carrying out the responsibilities. So, it is a mix between the two that helps us in the end to decide what we require to get the job done. For instance, if there is training required, then we support it. So, there is a positive approach taken to these things.

I think, if the Member is aware of communities that have been told in a very negative way that they are not ready and left at that, then I would say that this is certainly not something that we, as a ministry, have set out to do. If this has been conveyed, I would like to know about it so we can correct that immediately. The intent is, if we feel communities need some assistance to do their job, we will be there with them and work with them to make sure that they are confident, prepared and well-organized when they take over transfers. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Kakfwi. Mr. Zoe.

I understand what the Minister is saying. When you have the departmental staff holding workshops explaining what the community transfer initiative is all about, and if the community expresses a strong interest and says, we want to seriously look at housing or any other program within that

community transfer initiative, then the department has to, in cooperation with the community, come up with a process to determine if their capability is there or not. How do you establish that? Who has the final say? It is supposed to be a joint venture.

For instance, if I am the municipality and I am saying, I think I am capable of it," and I give you all my strong points, but the department may say, well, we don't think you are capable of doing this, or you are weak in this area. We figure you require training. In order to determine their capability, it could come up and say, we think we have the capabilities, but if you don't think that we do, then let's get an independent person or consultant to determine what capabilities are there or not. That all takes money.

How are decisions made about who gets the money and who doesn't? That is the bottom line. Who makes the ultimate decisions? My understanding is that you are supposed to go there and say, this is available to you. We are both supposed to do it together to see if the municipality is capable and try to assist them, if there is good likelihood that they are capable. Perhaps they are weak in some areas, but through their negotiations, perhaps they can incorporate training and these other things into their negotiations to cover their weak areas. In order for them to start developing this, it requires money. How does the ministry give them money? On what basis? Do you understand what I am trying to get at? Although the definitive objective says that, I don't know if that is being followed. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Zoe. Minister Kakfwi.

Thank you. The definitive objectives point to the fact that we need to work with communities if we find what would be an acceptable process for doing these assessments. The objective points out that it is not finalized yet, but we are working on it. What I have stated earlier is the intent. My view is that, it is not this ministry that says, for instance, to the municipality, we have some difficulties with your administrative and management structure because of previous dealings in other areas. That would be the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs. The Department of Social Services might suggest that we have some concerns about confidentiality of clients and, therefore, we need some assurances that it is going to be handled properly. It is not this ministry that is going to offer up these sorts of objections. Our job is to coordinate and make sure that an assessment is done. It is not to say, sorry, but you are not one of the communities we are willing to do business with. We will try to set it up so we do business with everybody. At the same time, we need some sort of a process that deals with outstanding concerns: how do we do it without being paternalistic or condescending; how do we do it without insulting people; and, how do we do it without hard-lining it? That is saying, this is our assessment and we don't agree that you are capable. We need some sort of a process that can be done well, keeping in view that we are dealing with public concerns, public programs and services. As a government, we are providing programs and services of a certain quality and nature that, at the very least, should not diminish as a result of transfers. So there is an obligation to give that reassurance to the public and the members of the individual communities. I think that is the intent of this. We don't, as the Member knows, have it written down in black and white, so we are still working on these but if, for instance, the Member has specific communities that he feels haven't been treated properly, then, as I say, the best way is to bring it to my attention. I can check them out personally, which I try to do anyway.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Zoe.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the same area of community transfer initiatives, one of the department's objectives is to complete at least four community transfer agreements -- two in Nunavut and two in the new western territory. Could I ask, Mr. Chairman, if the Minister can indicate to us which four communities they are looking at? I hope that the department is not limited only to four. If they can successfully do six, then I would encourage the department to go ahead to achieve six. Do they have these four communities earmarked already? Which four communities are they looking at? Thank you.

(Translation) Mr. Zoe has a question for Mr. Kakfwi.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We haven't earmarked communities but, keeping in mind that this community transfer initiative has been a high profile priority of this government and Members are wanting some sort of a commitment as to specific achievements they can expect over the next year, we have said that aside from the things that we are hoping to do by April 1 of this year, we should have at least four transfer agreements finalized this year, two in the Nunavut area and two in this area. For instance, we hope to have an agreement signed, even a partially complete transfer agreement, with Cape Dorset, by April 1. I have given a commitment to the mayor and the MLA, Mr. Pudlat, that this is what I will do.

We have possibilities to complete an agreement, perhaps a specific agreement, in places like Tuktoyaktuk, Aklavik, Fort Liard and Fort McPherson. We hope that some of these communities will be done in the course of the year, and the economic development officer positions, economic development transfer agreements regarding specific positions like that, have been done already. I would expect other communities will be following and these shouldn't take as long as the initial ones to complete. There should be some more work done to finalize talks regarding renewable resource officer positions. There are social services and social assistance positions. Inuvik is looking at taking over lottery licensing. There has been some work. It is my view, and the view of the staff, that once we take some leaps of faith in certain areas that involve the different departments, other agreements will follow much more quickly. The Member is asking if we have already identified the communities. We have not. We are just saying we are going to take the high road and say at least two in each part of the territories by the end of this coming fiscal year.

(Translation) Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Ng.

Thank you, Mr. Ng. Minister Kakfwi.

It has been almost community-by-community. We spent a great deal of time strategizing on the approach we want to take, but we have also been very careful to keep it away from a prescribed menu approach to transfer talks. That is, we did not want to walk in there with a prescribed process, a prescribed sequence of events that are going to take place and a prescribed scope of what is available and place it in front of a community and they can tick it off as they want. For instance, in one community, they may just want to talk about having an economic development officer report to them on a weekly basis and share information about what they are doing. In another community, they want total devolution from the same position. We know what the general scope of the talks are going to be and we have, for instance, in Fort Good Hope, drafted a transfer agreement on the economic development officer. It started about four years ago and we just finalized it during Mr. Pollard's term last year. We use that as a draft position that is available for other communities if they want total devolution of that position. In other communities, they are asking simply for them to have a reporting relationship. There is no prescription because, again, we think communities can define that and we will work with them so that they are not afraid of us having a predetermined conclusion to the talks. We get into it, but as we are developing them, I think people are going to see a range of what is available under Economic Development, Health or Housing. As more and more communities start to define what it is they want, then communities will be able to decide. But, initially, there weren't any of the prescriptions that people feel we should have had. They've been developed jointly and that has been the key element in community transfer. They are all being developed jointly.

Thank you, Minister Kakfwi. Mr. Ng.

Thank you, Mr. Ng. Minister Kakfwi.

No. What I find -- and I mentioned this in response to an earlier question -- is the settlement of claims, like the TFN claim and the Nunavut Act, is going to have a profound effect on how much time and resources the Nunavut communities are going to have with initiatives like this. This is simply because of the enormous demands that settlements of claims, planning for division and the set-up of the Nunavut government are going to make on the leadership and people who work for communities in the eastern Arctic.

In the Gwich'in claim, for instance, the Gwich'in leadership have found that the implementation of their claim and the planning for it is taking up a tremendous amount of their time, and they have been one of the most interested in exploring the options under the community transfer initiative. The Sahtu communities are going to find that, as well. We haven't been developing a backlog of communities who are interested and we haven't been keeping communities waiting, no.

Thank you, Mr. Kakfwi. Mr. Ng.