Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this memorandum of understanding with the Gwich'in Tribal Council in this government is going to be a very good tool for the Gwich'in and their settlement area to try to build capacity to get themselves involved in business. As you notice, it is a five-year arrangement and calls for 50 percent of contracts that are going to be met to go to Gwich'in businesses, to the Gwich'in Tribal Council, which have developed a list of businesses. As for the other 50 percent, which the honourable Members were concerned about is that they are going to continue to use the existing contracting businesses. What we intend to do here, very shortly, is send a team of officials up into the Inuvik area, visit all the communities in that area and try to explain this to them and try to alleviate the fears that are out there. I understand that whenever there is a change, there is a lot of fear attached to it because of the uncertainty and the unanticipated problems that may crop up as we try to implement this new working relationship with the Gwich'in. I just wanted to assure the Member that we will do whatever we can to work with the Gwich'in Tribal Council to make sure that fears that exist out there today as result of this signing will be identified and addressed. I have talked to the president of the Gwich'in Tribal Council a number of times over this, as recently as this morning, to see how this is going to play out. He is very aware of the situation in Inuvik and surrounding communities and he knows the great concern that has arisen as a result of this and we agreed to work together to see if we could find ways of implementing this that would not adversely have a huge negative impact on the small non-aboriginal business that may exist up in that area. So there is a spirit of cooperation there. We would like to honour the principle of the MOU and how we implement it. We would like to work with the communities up there, along with the Gwich'in Tribal Council, to try to identify what the problems are to see if we could solve these as we implement them. This is a new approach and we will have a lot of answers and I am sure there are a lot questions and we want to do this in a manner that will be acceptable to the people in the region that are going to be affected. Thank you.
Jim Antoine on Question 49-14(6): Gwich'in Contracting Memorandum Of Understanding
In the Legislative Assembly on February 19th, 2003. See this statement in context.
Return To Question 49-14(6): Gwich'in Contracting Memorandum Of Understanding
Question 49-14(6): Gwich'in Contracting Memorandum Of Understanding
Item 6: Oral Questions
February 18th, 2003
Page 165
Jim Antoine Nahendeh
See context to find out what was said next.