Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, in addition to the $400,000 that is shown here there is $330,000 base funding, for a total of $730,000. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is actually $900,000 on this page that I see for the Aboriginal Summit, so that is $500,000 as a contribution for devolution negotiations and $400,000 that Mr. Antoine has said is for travel and will be going to individual members of the Aboriginal Summit. All together, that is $1.23 million. Is that correct?

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Handley.

That is correct.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In the interest of getting everybody at the table to talk about devolution, obviously it is in everybody's interest in the North to try and make sure that everybody has the capacity to be there. Just to confirm, I think I understand that the total cost is shared with the federal government on a 50/50 basis, so does that mean that the federal government is also contributing $1.23 million to the Aboriginal Summit this fiscal year?

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, their contribution is a bit more than the GNWT's because the core funding is shared one-third GNWT and two-thirds federal, and then the balance is 50/50.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. That leads to where I was going with this. In the 12th and 13th Assemblies, whenever we were involved in negotiations with the federal government, aboriginal governments and this government, the cost-sharing agreement has always been one-third/two-thirds. There was the Constitutional Working Group and the Constitutional Development Steering Committee, and before that, the Committee of Political Leaders. I think there were a number of occasions when I remember that funding has always been shared one-third/two-thirds. The argument for that was the federal government has a fiduciary responsibility for First Nations. They have a trust relationship. I am not sure that the Government of the Northwest Territories holds anything in trust at this point. That is why we have always been able to get the federal government to recognize their responsibility to pay for capacity for the aboriginal governments to be at the table.

I am just wondering if we are not overstepping perhaps, because there is a fiscal basis to what we have gotten into here. In the past we were not talking just about fiscal issues but about the whole constitutional make up of the Northwest Territories, what we were going to look like at the end of the day, which at some point would have meant the fiscal side as well. Since there did not seem to be as much urgency to it, we were better able to force the issue and make sure that we saw that one-third/two-third split.

I am wondering if we are starting down a slope where the feds are getting away from their responsibilities in this issue and we are taking it up. We do not have the same deep pockets that they do. I am just a little concerned that if the funding relationship continues to slide, it could change to 50/50 completely and then perhaps we start getting past that. Is the Minister not at all concerned that we have started to change this relationship that was very successfully maintained through the entire 12th and 13th Assemblies, when we were in these kinds of tripartite negotiations?

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, certainly we would prefer to have it remain two-thirds federal and one-third GNWT. I expect that we will maintain that on core funding or base programs. There have been precedents set already in other areas where the federal government has refused to participate on a project or have been successful in negotiating something other than the two-thirds/one-third. In this case, I am not exactly sure of the negotiations, but it ended up being a 50/50 split to get on with these special projects.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Dent.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have no doubt the feds saw us as being over a barrel, because it is in Northerners' best interests to try and come to some agreement on the ownership and sharing of resources and the royalties that flow from them. I have no doubt they use that to their advantage.

I hope that we are able to work with the aboriginal governments to force the issue back to where it should be and that the fiscal responsibility remains as it should and that we pay a little more attention to that. This is in our own better interests, all of us, aboriginal governments and the GNWT, to bring these negotiations along. I think it is imperative we watch that we do not allow the funding allocations to slip too much down this road.

One other comment I would like to make, Mr. Chairman, to echo the comments Mr. Braden was making about the $100,000. I support the issue of funding for the Aboriginal Summit, particularly for the devolution negotiations, but I am less persuaded by Minister Antoine and his arguments for core funding and would prefer to see -- I know that the government wants to deal in a government-to-government-to-government relationship, and I think that is something we have made a strong commitment to do.

I am more easily seeing the Aboriginal Summit as being the government representatives for the First Nations at the table than I do the Dene Nation. That is what causes me some problems. I do not have a problem at all with funding to the Aboriginal Summit, but I have not been persuaded by Minister Antoine's arguments yet on the $100,000. That is just an issue I wanted to make sure was on the record.

Thank you, Mr. Dent. Executive, operations expense, Aboriginal Affairs, not previously authorized, $1,674,000.

Total department, not previously authorized, $276,000.

We will go to page 8, Finance, operations expenditures, Bureau of Statistics, not previously authorized, $211,000.

Total department, not previously authorized, $211,000.