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.