Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think the Member has accurately laid out the chain of events. But I would say that when we first met with the Deputy Prime Minister with also Ministers Goodale, Scott and Blondin-Andrew, we didn't get down to specific numbers. We identified the challenge. We indicated that we are aware of why Imperial Oil had gotten to this point in their assertion that what properly constituted access and benefit agreements was not all that was being requested here. We acknowledge as governments that we have a responsibility and a role here and the federal government has a responsibility and a role to fund this area because we don't get the revenues that we need in order to make these investments. But we made the point very clearly at that meeting that we had a sense in terms of our own numbers from this government, the kinds of pressures that we were likely to see up and down the valley for the development, but that was an incomplete picture. The next step was for us to go and sit down with some of the aboriginal leadership and talk about the pressures that they were feeling and come back with a comprehensive number. It was really preliminary at that point to get into a negotiation around numbers without having input from aboriginal governments, which is why we didn't do it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Brendan Bell on Question 20-15(4): Socioeconomic Impacts Of Pipeline Development
In the Legislative Assembly on May 26th, 2005. See this statement in context.
Return To Question 20-15(4): Socioeconomic Impacts Of Pipeline Development
Question 20-15(4): Socioeconomic Impacts Of Pipeline Development
Item 7: Oral Questions
May 25th, 2005
Page 40
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