Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Before we go any further, I just want to make mention of one thing. In an effort to try to make the best use of our time, perhaps if you have a number of questions directed at one Minister, we can try to get you to use up as much of your 10 minutes as you possibly can. I am sure the Ministers can take notes of the questions that you pose during your comments. I think that may be a better use of our time as opposed to going back and forth.

Mr. Yakeleya, I will go to I believe it was Minister Bell. Is that who the question was directed at? Minister Bell? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Our message to everybody who is interested in seeing this project move forward and to all northerners is that this government's support for the project is unwavering. We believe that the people on the ground in the communities are eagerly anticipating the project.

We want to see this happen, we want the economic benefits that can come from a development like this, but we want to make sure it's done in the appropriate manner. We're very confident that the environmental review process, the cooperation plan that's been laid out, is a comprehensive review process that will make sure that there isn't the duplication that we might have seen in past projects, and there's quite a potential with all the overlapping mandates and a number of different authorities involved that that would happen without this cooperation plan. So we think we're in for a very comprehensive and thorough environmental review, and we're in full support of that.

The recent announcements from Imperial, their decision to defer some of the on-the-ground work and refocus efforts on the regulatory process and on access and benefit agreements that they feel they haven't made the necessary progress on is obviously we're happy to see the additional horsepower and effort put into these areas, into the regulatory review process and into access and benefits. It is a concern to us that some of the work was deferred. What we need to do is to move as quickly as possible to resolve some of these outstanding issues so that come the late summer and early fall when the public hearing process is slated to begin, the project proponents have the necessary level of comfort and certainty that they need to continue to participate. What we don't want to see is the project's proponent pull away from the project at that stage, because that would be a significant delay. We think the delay here, the work that has been deferred this summer, is something that can be recovered in terms of critical timing, and still allow us to deliver gas before the end of 2010.

The work that needs to be done on access and benefits agreements is something that we've taken a real interest in. The Minister of Finance, the Premier and I have been in Ottawa meeting with our counterparts to try to deal with the outstanding socioeconomic issues and needs and pressures up and down the valley that rightfully should be on the shoulders of northern governments and not the project proponents. We're owning up to those responsibilities and acknowledging that there's a lot of work to be done, but also making the very clear point that it's the federal government that needs to fund the programs and services that are required, and the federal government, to their credit, now have acknowledged that. They've acknowledged a responsibility for funding and

we're now negotiating with the federal government and with aboriginal governments a deal that would see us able to address some of these socioeconomic impacts so that we can pave the way for a commercial deal on access and benefits, and that work is ongoing. I know the Premier's office is in contact with Ottawa this week as well, and the Minister of Finance, his office as well continues that work. So hopefully in the coming couple of weeks we will have additional meetings in Ottawa and look to get a resolution on this issue. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Bell. Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Bell. Mr. Chairman, I'd like to ask the Premier a question in regard to the AIP that is going to be looked at this spring or possibly this summer with Minister Goodale, Minister Scott and Deputy Prime Minister McLellan in regard to sticking to those time frames in terms of the devolution agreement. In his opinion, in terms of having something signed by the end of this summer on devolution and resource revenue, is this something we will see or something that will give us some security as we move forward with our resource development potential areas in the North? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister Bell. Oh, Mr. Premier.

Mr. Chairman, an AIP is still possible this spring, and I am still pushing the federal government and the Aboriginal Summit to work with us on achieving that agreement-in-principle this spring. I can tell you though that as the days go by, I'm getting increasingly uneasy that we're not going to be able to achieve it. We have to keep in mind this is a tripartite agreement. There's the Aboriginal Summit, ourselves and the federal government who have to come to agreement. At the negotiating table there's been less progress than what I would have liked to have seen, and I can't blame any one side for that, but we're not moving as quickly on outstanding items.

With the resource revenue sharing AIP in particular, there just have not been the discussions that I wish we had, and I have to say that a lot of that is because of the federal government's preoccupation on other issues that we haven't been able to get the meetings we want. But I am still looking to do that before the federal government recesses, but we'll have to see a more concerted effort if we're going to achieve it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. I've got Mr. Pokiak next on the list.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of quick comments in regard to the opening statements by the Ministers. I made it clear that it's very important that we move forward with the Mackenzie Valley pipeline issue. It's too bad that we sort of are reacting to something that Imperial Oil put upon us here in regard to the announcement they made. So we're put into a place where we're reacting to something that we should have been prepared for.

Mr. Chairman, there are a couple of things I would like to touch on. One is a question for the Premier on his sessional statement. Again, in his talks with the federal government, it's very clear he indicated that the federal government is making a real commitment to work with this government and the affected communities along the pipeline route. Can the Premier indicate to people on this side of the House just exactly how committed is the federal government to actually making funds available at this time? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Premier.

Mr. Chairman, the federal government has been more accessible to our government than I have seen and any other government in recent times. They have done a number of things. The most significant so far in terms of getting us new money is the changes to our fiscal formula, but also the Northern Strategy where the Prime Minister has committed to a more strategic view of the North, the commitment to provide us with $40 million. That money, I understand from our Member of Parliament, is coming to us in June. So there is a $40 million commitment there.

On the other area that I don't know if I want to say the government is not interested, but I know they are preoccupied with basic survival in Ottawa. So it has been difficult to get meetings. The actions that Imperial took did serve as a wakeup call for the federal government, and did cause them to move into action pretty quickly. Now it seems that there are delays that I'd sooner not have in getting their attention. Mr. Chairman, I might also say that as we speak there are aboriginal leaders from the Northwest Territories in Ottawa, and they are also doing their part to keep the government focused on this and I've been talking with those who are in Ottawa. I spoke to two of them this morning. So we'll continue our effort. I think the federal government is trying, but, as I say, they're preoccupied with other things. They are certainly making the commitments, it's following through with final agreements that we need to achieve. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'm well aware of some of the funding that's been made available right now, Mr. Chairman, but I think the question I have for the Premier is I'm talking about the money we're talking about with regard to the social impacts that are concerns for the aboriginal groups. I am well aware of the Northern Strategy money that's available to this House, but my question is specifically about what was actually talked about in Calgary with the Deputy Prime Minister as to how much money is available for this government to address the socioeconomic impacts. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Premier.

Mr. Chairman, just for clarification, Minister Roland, Minister Bell and I met in Ottawa with the Deputy Prime Minister, the Minister of Finance, the Minister of DIAND and Minister of Northern Development. At that meeting, we did not talk about specific amounts of money. We talked about the fact that socioeconomic impacts are primarily government's responsibility, primarily our responsibility because those programs are within our mandate. But because we don't have resource revenue sharing, there is an obligation of the federal government to provide us with money to be

able to achieve our needs. They agreed with that. We didn't talk specific amounts of money because we wanted to talk to the aboriginal leaders first.

When we met in Calgary the following week, it was only with aboriginal leaders, not with the Deputy Prime Minister. At that time, we looked at what our estimate was for the GNWT of meeting socioeconomic needs. That was roughly $50 million on forced growth, mitigating impacts and the capital expenditures. We looked at what the asks were or the requests were from the aboriginal governments. It totalled up to an average of $100 million a year with some years in the initial periods being higher than later on because of the need to improve our capital infrastructure.

So the $100 million a year, until we have resource revenue sharing, was an estimate we worked out with aboriginal governments. We sent that to Ottawa. The federal Ministers have seen it and as we speak today, our officials are in touch with theirs about setting up a meeting. I am prepared to go to Ottawa any time a meeting is set up, whether it's tomorrow or the day after or the day after that, but I hope to have a meeting this week. My preference is to meet with the federal Ministers and aboriginal leaders. But if that can't be possible, I will do it again on my own and brief the leaders on why we are doing that, given the short time frame we have to work with.

But there is no commitment on the part of the federal government toward the $100 million. Our deputy ministers did meet with theirs last week and we will continue to rationalize and explain why we feel this amount is necessary. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have one last question with regard to the devolution agreement. When you talked about a devolution AIP being signed by the spring, we are at the end of May now. We are pretty well past spring and looking into summer. So when are we actually going to get that AIP in place? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Mr. Premier.

Mr. Chairman, on the devolution side, that is the transfer of responsibility, there are five outstanding issues. I don't think those issues can be or will be resolved at the negotiating table. I am prepared to sit down with Minister Andy Scott and whoever he needs, to come to political agreements on those outstanding items if necessary. As soon as I get a meeting, I want to talk about those.

On the resource revenue sharing side, there has been less of a willingness to come to the table and talk seriously about resource revenue sharing. What we are asking for is an agreement that is very similar to what the provinces enjoy, where we get a percentage of revenues ongoing, but the federal government still seems to be stuck on wanting to offer us a flat amount of money, just a fixed amount of money regardless how much revenues go up or down. That is not acceptable to us. So we have to move them off that.

There are other issues as well on the quantum. This is not, in our view, a token amount of money. This is a fair share of revenues that come off our territory that we are asking for. I don't think what we are asking for is outrageous, but we want a share of it and we want it done on a percentage basis, not some flat amount that has no relationship to development.

The other issue we have to deal with is the sharing of resource revenues with aboriginal governments. Some seem to be more eager to get into debate with us about how to divide it up before we know what we've got. I am of the view that we work together as northern governments to get as much as we can, as good a deal as we can and then worry about dividing it second. If we get into big disagreements about how to divide it up, we may end up with nothing and have nothing to divide up.

In conclusion, I know it's the end of May. I know we are running out of time. I am getting more and more concerned we may not achieve this. I think it's very unfortunate if we end up putting this off until fall. Who knows what the agenda will be in the fall in Ottawa. I don't like that scenario and I am not ready to concede that it's not going to be done this spring. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. I have Mr. Villeneuve next on the list.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a couple of concerns with Minister's Statement 5-15(4) by the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs with respect to the $1.3 million that is going to be provided to the NWT for the assessment of the impacts of the proposed Mackenzie gas project. I guess just looking at the numbers and seeing that the 21 communities that are going to be affected will be directly affected or more affected, I should say, with pipeline development which equates to around $50,000 for each one of those communities. With probably more funding available through some of the negotiations with the proponents and even further funding through federal government funding sources for these communities to assess the social, economic and long-term impacts of the Mackenzie gas project, my attention is drawn to the other 11 communities in the NWT that are not considered high impact zones with the Mackenzie gas proponents and with the federal government.

This government here has also committed to providing $50,000 to these 11 community governments for their review and planning and assessing any potential impacts and opportunities with the pipeline construction. I am just wondering if this is a one-shot deal. Is this a one $15,000 deal for these 11 communities, or is this a yearly contribution to the communities to deal with all the technical, professional and legal aspects to review the pipeline impact on these communities?

I think a project of this magnitude is going to affect the NWT everywhere, whether you are right next to the pipeline or whether you are 500 kilometres away from the pipeline. I think there will be as many people moving into communities like Fort Smith, Fort Resolution, Hay River and other non-impact zone communities as will be going into Fort Good Hope, Fort Simpson and all those communities that are right next to the pipeline. I just don't see how $50,000 for any one of these 11 communities is going to help to do a thorough review of any impact that the community is going to be able to measure from the

pipeline project or any opportunities that they are going to be able to identify. I just want to ask if there is any more funding on the horizon for these so-called low impact zone communities that the Mackenzie gas project will be impacting just as much as the communities right along the pipeline route. That's my first question. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Premier. Mr. McLeod.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the funding that the Member is referring to is the $1.3 million that MACA has brought forward and allocated to the number of different communities based on the level of impact, and this funding was identified as something that was needed through our conference that we hosted in Inuvik in December.

A lot of the community governments came forward and indicated that there was very little and, in some cases, practically no resources out there to assist them to deal with the many demands that were being placed on them as a result of this Mackenzie gas project on top of other things that they were being asked to do in the area of resource development. It was not an area that we expected to fund as a government. Initially we expected the federal government or the proponent to come forward with some of these resources. Our concern has been that there are limited resources for a lot of these communities to deal with the number of issues that are coming forward.

We did come forward with a funding mechanism to Cabinet for consideration. It was approved. In our plans, we identified 21 communities that were affected. The methodology that we used to identify the communities was through the Mackenzie gas project environmental impact statement. They identified the communities that they felt had potential direct or indirect impacts. Through that we made out our list of communities that would qualify for that funding.

The $30,000 that is available includes all these communities, plus Yellowknife. The reason we added Yellowknife is because Yellowknife was the only community that did not fall into that category, however, is an intervener in the review process.

In our view, as the Member has indicated, we agree that all the communities are going to be impacted in some way; however, we felt that there was a need to put more money into some of the communities that were going to be impacted more and at the same time provide some resources to the other communities to deal with any requirements to plan, review or assess any potential impacts or opportunities on the community or by the community as a result of this pipeline construction. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I guess I understand the Minister's point of view that all communities are going to be affected to some degree with pipeline construction. I guess all I'm really concerned about is the fact that a lot of these communities don't have housing markets, they don't have a lot of infrastructure, they don't have a lot of the amenities that a lot of these other 11 communities probably have, like Hay River and Fort Smith and a couple of these larger centres.

With that being said, you know, I just don't know how we can say who's going to be really impacted and who isn't going to be impacted, because I feel that a community like Hay River and even Fort Smith and Fort Resolution, who have been on the road system, I think there's going to be a lot of pipeline construction workers who are going to be taking up residence in these communities that have housing markets, these communities that have community development plans that are in the works and have a little more infrastructure in their communities so they can raise families and have decent schools. I think there would be a large influx of construction workers into these communities, as opposed to taking up residence in Fort Good Hope or Colville Lake or anywhere off the road system.

I just feel that $15,000 to do any technical or professional or legal reviews, or even economic impact reviews for any of these communities is really insufficient. I don't think $15,000 really carries a lot of professional time attached to that. Just to do some social impacts in these communities is definitely going to soak up all that money, not to mention the economic impacts and the infrastructure impacts and the legal research and advice that's going to be required and the regulatory reviews that maybe some of these communities want to get in on.

Are there any other dollars these communities are entitled to? I know that the federal government funding arrangements are only for these impacted communities that are identified in this environmental impact statement. That goes for proponent funding, too, on any social or economic impact measurements that these communities want to do. All this funding is just for these 21 communities that are identified in that impact statement.

I think maybe if this government was going to fund something like that, that they'd fund maybe more to these other 11 that aren't privy to this federal government funding and proponent funding and stuff like that to do all these reviews. So why shouldn't they give more to these other 11 communities as opposed to giving the majority $50,000 to each one of these 21 communities on top of all the other monies they have at their disposal? I just don't see a balance in that. Thank you.