Page 2-34 and 2-35, activity summary, Public Utilities Board, operations expenditure summary, $336,000.

Page 2-36 and 2-37, information item, Public Utilities Board, active positions.

Page 2-38 and 2-39, activity summary, regional operations, operations expenditure summary, $2.022 million.

Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a quick question about the new regional superintendent positions that are going to be coming on stream, with regard to this new position for the socio-economic impact fund, I don't know. Again, just getting back to what some of my colleagues are saying about building more bureaucracy for regions to deal with, it just seems more cumbersome than efficient. I just want to know if these regional superintendent positions going out to the various regions, what kind of interdepartmental authority are they going to have over the Mackenzie gas office in Hay River with respect to any decisions that are going to be rolling out with this socio-economic impact fund? At the end of the day, who is going to make the final decision on where that money goes along with the band councils and everything like that? How does the whole Mackenzie Valley pipeline office play an integral part in that whole intergovernmental working relationship with the economic fund? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Premier.

Mr. Chairman, these five positions will have the authority to pull together the

superintendents they need to meet with and, from there, on to coordinate the efforts of the department within the region. We have a ministerial form of government where the superintendent will report to a deputy minister, to a Minister, to the Premier. As we have experienced the last number of years as we become more and more busy, is each department tends to operate somewhat in a stovepipe independent of every other one. We need to coordinate more, so people in the communities can hear the voice of government. The regional superintendent for the Executive will be that voice. You need to talk to one person about how does the housing program, the education program, how does it all fit together and who do they speak to? That's the person they go to. That individual will be able to call together the superintendents as it needs, work out a compromise on the particular issues or deal on the issue, provide clarification to the public. If there is difficulty, then those individuals each report to the secretary to Cabinet who reports to me, and then we have a streamlined way of resolving the differences or the difficulties we are running into.

Mr. Chairman, I have to say again that more than anything else, this is the concern and criticism I have heard from people in the communities about our government. It's too fractured and we need to have this coordination, particularly as we get busy with oil and gas, hydro and all the other economic activities we are experiencing now. We need to be streamlined. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. Mr. Villeneuve.

Mahsi, Mr. Chair. It's good to be streamlined. I believe that's a necessity anyway out in the regions. Without people hearing the voice of government, I think the government has to hear the voice of the people more often than it does today into finding some resolutions to a lot of the issues boiling over because this whole socio-economic fund that's apparently not there yet, but being talked about today. I know there's going to be lots of questions about who is going to get what, how much, and how they are going to be able to spend it. All these questions still have to be ironed out before the socio-economic agreement rolls out. I just wanted to get a good understanding of if and when this socio-economic impact fund does become a reality for northerners, who is going to have the final say? I know there is going to be consultations with boards, NGOs and First Nations, but at the end of the day, who is going to have the signing authority? Who is going to write the cheque and who's going to be able to cash it? Is it going to be the GNWT, or is it going to be the aboriginal governments, or is it going to be the regional superintendents or the federal government? Who, at the end of the day, is going to be able to spend that money? In some of the instances, the decision to spend it one way is really going to be close to another consensus on spending it a different way. Who is going to ultimately call that shot? Is there going to be some kind of a special socio-economic development initiatives committee drawn up in every region? I just want to know and I think the people would want to know when that money does come available to them. How much are they going to be allowed to tap into? Who is going to be able to have the final say in how they spend that money and who is going to say when they are allowed to spend that money? Where is all that going to come from? Is it going to come from the Department of Executive, DIAND or the aboriginal governments in a forum of all three governments working together? How is that going to work? I just want a basic understanding of that. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There will be a territorial legal entity created as a not-for-profit body that will be managed by a board made up of representation from the federal government, the territorial government and the regional aboriginal organizations. That body is the one that will receive the money. Then, at the regional level, there will be regional committees made up of the territorial government and the aboriginal communities or representatives. The aboriginal representation will outnumber the territorial for sure, and it is that body that will determine how the money allocated to the regions is going to be distributed and spent. There is an accountability requirement by that regional committee on spending the money and reporting back on what it's used for.

Mr. Chairman, the regional aboriginal organizations have already come up with a formula on how the money that comes will be distributed between each of the regions. They have a formula for that.

This is the proposal that was worked out before the change in federal government. I know the current federal government, of course, has the authority and the right and responsibility to change that if they chose to, but the creation of a territorial legal entity, the creation of regional committees was a decision made jointly by representatives of the federal government, our government and the aboriginal organizations. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. So the regional representation is great. Putting together all these legal entities, NGOs on an interim basis, I guess they would be, just for distribution and allocation of these dollars, just get down to the dollars that were allocated for the socio-economic fund and how they were split up into the three regions of the Deh Cho, the Sahtu and the Gwich'in/Inuvialuit. I am just wondering, since it's not finalized with the federal government, what about the other regions in the NWT like the Akaitcho, the Tlicho and the Thebacha regions, and even the reserve? These are regions who are going to be significantly impacted, too, socially, probably in a larger degree than a lot of the communities in the valley that are really tiny. Sure, they will grow by about 100 percent, I am sure, in a lot of instances. There will be a lot of pipeline people, a lot of socio-economic impacts happening even here in Yellowknife, probably in Res and Smith. People will be moving there and moving to Hay River and living all over the NWT. I just don't think that the impact that is going to be realized across the NWT...The impact may be in Smith or the Akaitcho region is going to be taking a backseat on the immediate impacts that is going to be happening up and down the valley. To me, it just doesn't seem fair that we are excluding pretty much half of the NWT in saying that you guys aren't entitled to any of this impact benefit dollars or funding because you are not in the immediate impact zone.

As far as I am concerned, the whole NWT is the impact zone for any major project of that magnitude that happens here in the NWT. We are all impacted just as much as anywhere else from north to south and east to west.

So with this new government coming into power, I am wondering if there are going to be any amendments to include the NWT, or is there any other impact agreements that might be coming down the line that might assist the Akaitcho Territory and the Tlicho Territory to mitigate some of those impacts and to deal with them at the same pace as Fort Good Hope and Fort Simpson and those other places? Is there going to be money available for that? I know there was about $15,000 last year that was given to measure socio-economic impacts in the regions. I thought $15,000; what is that? For the Thebacha or Akaitcho regions, that was just really nothing. What kind of an expert can you get to do any kind of work for $15,000 for maybe a couple of weeks' work? A couple of days with prices these days.

I am just wondering if the Minister could tell us if there are any other avenues that the government is going to be seeking on behalf of these other regions to help them mitigate the big impacts that they are going to be feeling, too. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Premier.

Mr. Chairman, let me say that the process being followed here is very similar to what we did when we negotiated as a government and as aboriginal organizations with diamond mines. Except in that case, each of the impacted communities or regions negotiated socio-economic impact mitigation funding within their access and benefit agreement. So if you go to the Tlicho, you would find something to deal with the socio-economic issues and the same with the Akaitcho and Lutselk'e and so on.

In this case, what has happened is the communities along the valley have negotiated what is basically a joint socio-economic mitigation agreement that is for everybody. Then they will include in their access and benefit agreements terms on employment, on contracting, on other issues. So it is very similar to what we did with the diamond mines. In the same way, the Gwich'in, for example, did not benefit from an access or benefits agreements on diamond mines. Those communities that are not on the pipeline don't get the direct benefit. So the Member asked a good question. How do we deal with the impacts for everybody else, whether it's in Yellowknife, or in Behchoko, or Fort Resolution, or anywhere? How do we deal with that? That is where we negotiate resource revenues. Typically, in any government, we would collect the resource revenues and we would use those for mitigating the negative impact of the development. We would use those for enhancing our infrastructure, for increasing our training facilities and so on.

In a short answer, Mr. Chairman, it is resource revenues that are used across the Territories on an equitable basis for everybody, no matter if you live on the pipeline or not. You get access to the benefit from resource revenues. That's the second piece. This first piece is just for along the valley.

Mr. Chairman, I am confident we are going to be successful in getting a fair resource revenue sharing arrangement. The Prime Minister said we should be the primary beneficiaries. That's the money we allocate all across the Territories to help people no matter which community they live in. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. Page 2-39, activity summary, regional operations, operations expenditure summary, $$2.022 million.

Page 2-40 and 2-41, information item, regional operations, active positions.

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