Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The honourable Member is correct. Along with the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs we have FMBS involved because of the costing and the program and service aspect of negotiations we have. The Department of Justice is involved because of the legal aspects of the different negotiations and legislation changes that will probably have to be made to accommodate it.

Municipal and Community Affairs is also involved because of the area of lands in the municipal areas. They have to be involved because they have the knowledge of it. Resources, Wildlife and Economic Development is also involved because there is the hunting, trapping and resource aspect of it. Whenever they are called upon they participate, but they are not there full time. I just want to make that point.

I also want to say that we did check with other jurisdictions before, and we learned that the Government of British Columbia spent over $43 million and have 207 positions and they have numerous negotiating processes. The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador spent $2.1 million, they have 22 positions and they have two processes. The same as the Yukon Territory, they have $1.6 million, ten positions and two processes. We spend $4.6 million with the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs. We have 34 positions and we have seven negotiating processes going on. If you figure that out, then I think we are doing okay compared with other jurisdictions. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. According to the Minister's opening remarks, part of the remarks state "supporting the aboriginal people to have greater self-determination over their social, cultural and political destiny." I would say the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act contravenes that statement.

You have two land claim groups who benefit from any development that happens in the Northwest Territories, whether it be oil drilling in the Sahtu settlement area, oil drilling in the Gwich'in settlement area, or diamond mining in the backyard of Lutselk'e. They will still get a percentage of those royalties.

Can we depend on them having a fair and open process and deciding that there are people who are concerned that they do not want anything happening in the region of the Lutselk'e area, the Akaitcho territory, Deh Cho or Dogribs - that these guys will say, "Okay, we agreed, we will not allow this development to happen?" Of course they will allow this development to happen. They are going to get 11 percent of the $5 million a year royalty regime. Where is the fairness in that?

Again, I would encourage the department to do their jobs and get a legal opinion on the validity of the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. I do not know if the department has thought about that from that perspective, but I would like to ask the Minister if they have.

Mr. Minister.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, this Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act is a federal act that has gone through the federal process. The government as a whole, the government of the day, was involved in that, but really it was the initiative of the federal government to put this legislation in place.

Our role here in the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs is to coordinate this government's approach at the different land claim tables. What happened in the past, the act is in place, they have implemented the act. I think the act provides for different representatives from different regions to be on the board. I know that where I am from in the Deh Cho there is a provision that there could be a Deh Cho representative on the board, but they have not chosen to go there yet. But there is the provision for them to have representation on the board like all the other regions in the North. I am not too sure what provisions are in there for representation from the Akaitcho to be on that board, but I am sure there is something to put somebody from the Akaitcho on that board. I am not too familiar with the whole board structure and so forth, but I am sure there is that provision there.

We are at the claims table because the different aboriginal governments, groups and organizations see themselves in their own traditional areas, and they want to negotiate land resources and they want to negotiate their own governance in their own areas, so they have made application to the federal government. The federal government has accepted their application to negotiate, and that is how the claims process is taking place. This is where we say that the First Nations want to negotiate their own lands and their own resources and their own governance on it, so at the end of this whole process I would assume that they would want to do that so that they would control their own destiny and their own lives, and they want to have a say on what happens on their own land. They would benefit from it.

That is my understanding of why First Nations would want to go through the whole process of sitting down and negotiating the process. I am sure that is what the intention of the Akaitcho First Nation government is. That is why we are saying that we are there to negotiate what eventually would be good for the First Nations. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am surprised that the Minister does not know what the conditions of having membership to this board is, because as far as I know, this government through the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs, is a signatory to the Gwich'in and Sahtu land claims and the Inuvialuit land claims. I am sure that the Minister knows that the Deh Cho, Akaitcho and the Dogrib representatives, if they choose to sit on the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Board, do not have a voting right. They can sit around the table all day long and discuss something, but when it comes to a vote, they are asked to leave.

Effectively, what the federal government has done, with the consent of this government, is use other aboriginal groups to pressure groups that have not signed land claims into negotiating something they may not totally agree to, because their lands are being alienated by their own people. The Gwich'in and Sahtu people are deciding if the development is going to happen in the Deh Cho, Akaitcho or Dogrib regions. In Denendeh, the Dogribs, Deh Cho and the Akaitcho people do not have a say.

I think there must be some kind of law that protects them from that. That is why I ask the department to get a legal opinion on this. They would be doing their jobs then. By just coordinating the role of negotiations and not having a say or getting an opinion, why are we spending $4,893,000 per year on staff that do not have any responsibility here, or do not want to take any responsibility for their actions? We could use those dollars for programs and services, building day cares in communities. Just leave the negotiations to the federal government and the aboriginal groups.

Why do we spend money here? Most of the time we are just slowing up the process, according to both sides of the table, both the federal and the aboriginal tables say that the GNWT slows down the process. Again, I will ask the Minister, would he look into getting a legal opinion? Thank you.

Mr. Antoine.

Thank you. If the honourable Member wants a legal opinion, then we will get a legal opinion. I just want to say in response to the general comments there, in this line of work I hear a lot of criticism of this government and I have to stand up for the Ministry of Aboriginal Affairs when we are accused of slowing down the process. I would like to know specifically in which area we are slowing down the process. I want to know. This is what I tell the leadership of the aboriginal governments. You throw that out, and then we are working hard, the negotiators are working very hard for the people of the North and for this government and this Legislature, and then we are accused of slowing down the process. We want to know specifically where.

In many times, almost all of the times, there was no specific explanation of what they are saying when it comes down to we are slowing down the process. We could say that for the other parties as well in many instances when the process is stalled for one reason or another, but we do not go accusing other people of slowing down the process. We have to respect each other and honour each other. There are some areas where we have to work things out.

I think we have come a long way in the Dogrib claim. We are more than 90 percent done. We have come a long way to accommodate and deal with all the issues. We have some big issues still left. In the Beaufort Delta, they are pretty close to an AIP, so we are making progress. At the end of the day, there is going to be some benefits. The Deh Cho have approved the initialling of the framework agreement and they also agreed for their negotiators to initial their interim measures agreement.

I understand that the Akaitcho Territory is looking at an interim agreement as well. What this interim measures agreement would do is protect the Deh Cho lands that they want to get protected while they are negotiating so that their lands will not get alienated. I understand the Akaitcho leadership is also thinking in those terms as well. There are different ways of doing it. The work is complicated and difficult at times. We have people in the Ministry that are capable of doing the work and we are making progress. I just have to say that.

I think it is important to say that because there are some time lines that we put in place and this year we are going to see some conclusions of some of these tables. It has come a long way to get this far. The other process, that is just starting up, there is still some work to be done. I think what we have to do and try the best we can to represent this government, represent the Legislative Assembly and ultimately represent the people in the Northwest Territories is to try to conclude some of these negotiations. Thank you.

General comments? Mr. Nitah.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. When treaties are signed, there are different interpretations of treaties obviously. There is the federal government version where they say for $5 a year and for some free medical and education, you give up all your lands and resources to this whole Territory. The aboriginal side is saying the peace and friendship treaty where we agreed to let you come and live amongst us. You do not impose taxes on us, you do not develop resources, you do not take anything out of this land. You leave things the way they are supposed to be.

Through nickel and diming different aboriginal groups, making them fight with one another, creating this government, giving them the responsibility of delivering programs and responsibilities on behalf of the federal government, a lot of that is aboriginal dollars designated for aboriginal people. He's asking for some specific area. A lot of times the territorial negotiators go to the table without a specific mandate. When a decision needs to be made, they do not have the mandate to say yes or no. So they stall, we have to go back to get a mandate to go back and say yes or no. That is one example.

When you are negotiating a specific program or service, this government tries to hang onto that. It slows things down. There is another specific area. I would like to know when we can expect this legal opinion. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Minister Antoine.

I am sure there has been a lot of work done in the past in leading up to the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. We will put it together as soon as we can. I do not know how long it is going to take. Just give us some time to put it together and we will pass it on to the honourable Member. Mahsi. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Nitah. General comments? Mr. Roland.

Thank you. Minister Antoine.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Whenever we negotiate self-government arrangements, whatever political structure is going to be created by the First Nations, the programs and services that they may eventually be providing, all that will require funding of some sort. Some of that will be coming from the existing programs and services we are currently providing through our governments. However, it is going to cost additional dollars. We know that. We call that incremental costs.

It has been the position of this government that since the responsibility for the incremental costs of implementing self-government, in general, remains an outstanding issue between ourselves and Canada, our position is that the federal government is responsible and has to be responsible for 100 percent of the incremental cost to implement self-government.

In a recent meeting with the Minister of Indian Affairs, Robert Nault, in Vancouver along with the Dogrib leadership and negotiators, the Minister confirmed that the federal government, through DIAND, will pay 100 percent of the incremental costs to implement self-government and the Dogrib Agreement. I made sure, I repeated a number of times to confirm that is the case. They did not indicate that yes, that is his position. Like the honourable Member, I would like to know what it really means, what is the interpretation of this incremental cost of the federal government.

We agreed to work on it. We have people within the Government of the Northwest Territories that have costed out arrangements. We are ready to put them to work to try to deal with this one here. We in the Government of the Northwest Territories believe that a zero-based costing approach is the best method of determining the actual cost of implementing self-government. Yes, we will be transferring funds associated with the delivery of programs and services, as well as any type of savings that we may realize as a result of the new, negotiated self-government arrangements.

Right now, we are directly involved in trilateral negotiations with the federal government, with the Dogribs, to look at the financing agreement, implementing an implementation plan for the negotiations, including the modeling of the different programs and services, and trying to determine the costing for it. There is a significant amount of work that is still yet to be done in that whole financial aspect, specifically with the Dogrib claim, but I think we have agreement to go ahead and try to do some modeling and some costing.

That is, for us, a positive turn of events. Hopefully, if this is a good process to follow, we will use it in other tables that we are involved in. Thank you.

Thank you. Mr. Roland.

Page 2-61, Aboriginal Affairs, operations expense, total operations expense, $4,893,000.

Agreed.

Page 2-63, Aboriginal Affairs, grants and contributions, grants, total grants, $300,000.

Agreed.