Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Some time ago we began this process, which really started after voting on the Boundaries Commission's report that no new seats were added to Yellowknife. The Friends of Democracy went to court and got a ruling that no constituency could be more than 25 percent above the average population of the average constituency in the Northwest Territories. From that, Bill 15 arose, and we the Standing Committee on Government Operations had that bill for 120 days. We went to several communities and heard representations from aboriginal people as well as from non-aboriginal people. In the smaller communities the feeling was pretty well unanimous, I could say, that they are very, very afraid of what this bill will be doing. They asked us to put some controls, I suppose you could call it, into place and to put a new process into place so that a new way of governing the North could be put into place not for this election but for the following one. That was the birth of our recommendations.
We obviously took the Premier's statement from March 24 to heart, knowing full well that he would live by what he had indicated, that in his view, building understanding of the issues and reaching a political resolution is critical if we are to move beyond this issue as a unified new territory. We did try to find out what the people wanted, and today the Aboriginal Summit issued a press release which was tabled as Tabled Document 61-13(7). If I may, I will just read the contents. It reads:
Members of the NWT Aboriginal Summit are supporting the recommendations of the Legislative
Assembly's Government Operations Committee for changes to Bill 15. The GNWT has proposed
legislation to add five new seats to the Assembly for urban areas. These measures are the least the
Assembly can do for aboriginal people outside Yellowknife, says Gary Bohnet, the President of the Metis
Nation NWT and co-chair of the summit, after a noon hour conference call with summit members.
Bill Erasmus, National Chief of the Dene Nation and co-chair of the summit added, the committee Members
who sponsored this report did go out and listen to people. Their report should be taken seriously. We
must make it clear, though, that the Dene Nation Chiefs as well as summit members do not support
adding five seats. Our support for the measures proposed by the committee does not mean that we agree
with the intent of the bill. Measures proposed by the committee include a work plan with clear guidelines
for the negotiation of a political accord with aboriginal governments, a legal reference to the Supreme Court of Canada on the relationship of aboriginal rights and individuals democratic rights, a six Member
Cabinet with guaranteed regional representation, a Constitutional and Electoral Reform Commission,
and a sunset clause that would repeal the boundaries when the next Assembly dissolves.
Bohnet pointed out that some of the committee's recommendations cannot be considered in isolation
from others. There is no sense in having a sunset clause if there is not any provision for a Constitutiona
and Electoral Reform Commission to work out new relationships and a new plan for electoral boundaries,
he said. The Northwest Territories Cabinet has already rejected some of the proposed measures,
including the legal reference and the introduction of legislation to establish a Constitutional and Electoral
Reform Commission.
The Cabinet has suggested they will negotiate a political accord and deal with
constitutional development through a proposed intergovernmental forum process. The mandate and
structure of the intergovernmental forum process has not been defined. The role in this process of
regional and tribal aboriginal governments, the Inuvialuit, and the Metis is not clear. It is not even
clear the process will get off the ground. Therefore, we strongly support an independent constitutional
commission established in law and reporting to both Legislative Assembly and the aboriginal leadership,
Bohnet said. Mr. Chairman, that was a press release that was released by the Western NWT Aboriginal
Summit earlier today. With that, I am hoping that the Cabinet will reconsider their stance earlier that
they would not agree totally with our recommendations. With the voice of the Aboriginal Summit that
they do agree to this type of a process, hopefully the Cabinet would reconsider and indicate that they
would reconsider.
Mr. Chairman, this has been a long process. I would have rather preferred to stay in Yellowknife and to be with my family and to spend more time with my family, even when we were in Yellowknife, during this long process as, I am sure, the rest of our committee Members that did work on this and the staff that also did the work. I would like to thank everybody that worked on the report and thank the people who came forward and made presentations. Hopefully the Cabinet will reconsider their stance in light of the press release from the Aboriginal Summit. With that, I would like to thank you for allowing me to make my closing comments. Thank you.