Mahsi, Mr. Yakeleya. Mr. Handley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. As much as possible we want to structure our funding to the regional aboriginal organizations in a way that gives them maximum autonomy in terms of how they structure themselves and what kind of territorial organization they may need to support them. The purpose in doing that, of course, is to allow them to participate in a forum that lets them work cooperatively; it doesn't matter if it's to discuss devolution, or resource revenue sharing, or caribou harvesting, or whatever it may be that they want to do at the territorial level. It gives them the money to be able to participate.

Mr. Chairman, in that $200,000, that money was $100,000 to be distributed to aboriginal organizations across the Territories with the exception of the Gwich'in and the Inuvialuit, and $100,000 was to go to the Beau-Del regional self-government. The regional self-government had signed an AIP and we're moving along toward a Beau-Del regional government. A few weeks ago, the president of the Gwich'in Tribal Council formally stated that the Gwich'in were no longer participating in that regional self-government model. We still need to get more clarification from the Beau-Del leaders of how they want to pursue the self-government; whether it's going to be each on their own or what they will do. There's a meeting in the Beau-Del later in March that I intend to go to and hopefully get more clarification, but that, so $100,000 had been set aside for the Beau-Del. Whether we spend that $100,000 there and $100,000 to the rest of the territory will depend on the outcome of the meeting later in March, but this, as Members understand, is changing almost on a weekly basis for us. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Villeneuve.

Mahsi, Mr. Chairman. Joe just answered one of my questions already. I was just going to ask questions on the other $100,000 that he was talking about, but that's already covered.

I guess I just want to ask a quick question on the autonomy and the authority and the mandate of the Aboriginal Affairs department versus the Aboriginal Summit with intergovernmental relations and resource revenue sharing and devolution. I know that when the summit was formed by this government a few years ago, it was probably the easiest way to deal with all aboriginal governments under one roof or on one table. Now that the tri-governmental relationships are ongoing, there seems to be a lot of, there's more differences, I guess, with the territorial government's negotiations and what the territorial government wants to get out of the negotiations and the devolution agreements, versus what the summit wants to get and versus what the federal government wants to give. With this growing rift between what the summit is more or less leaning towards and what the GNWT wants to get out of the Intergovernmental Forum is our issues on, I guess, direct resource revenue payments to who is going to accept them and how much is it going to be. I just want to know if this money, this $830,000 that's going to go to these regional governments to find out how they want to participate in the Intergovernmental Forum with the Aboriginal Summit being their point of contact, I guess, with the other negotiations parties. If these regional governments start pulling out and saying we don't want to go through this Aboriginal Summit forum and work with the GNWT that way, we want to go on one-on-one or on our own with the federal government, but some, say, you know, half of the aboriginal governments decide to stay with the Aboriginal Summit, then there's going to be a whole new, I don't know, can of worms that the GNWT is going to have to start dealing with, I guess, before any devolution or resource revenue sharing agreement comes to fruition. That's my whole point. When or how, does the GNWT have a plan B or a plan C in place, say, to deal with the different scenarios that might be coming up when this resource revenue devolution starts getting closer to just being resolved, I guess, just on a framework agreement? If the pipeline starts going and gets constructed before anything is actually signed, is there a plan to address that issue to say, geez, you know, we haven't got any resource revenue deal signed yet on the dotted line, but the pipeline is already starting to be built and how are we going to deal with it that way? Is there any contingency plans that the government has in place to address all these unknowns? Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mahsi, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Handley.

Mr. Chairman, let me correct one statement. There is no rift between the GNWT and the Aboriginal Summit. The Aboriginal Summit was set up for a specific purpose in furthering devolution and resource revenue sharing and also some economic activity. So that's still fine with us. Mr. Chairman, where there are differences is between some of the aboriginal organizations. While some have settled claims and want to get on with the implementation of their claims, that includes further steps on self-government, and they want to move ahead with that and they want to deal with devolution and resource revenue sharing. Other regional organizations, the Akaitcho, for example, have said they do not want to deal with devolution until they settle their agreement. The Dehcho have said the same thing. So we can't get ourselves in a position where we're forcing them to participate in something that they said they didn't want to participate in. So, Mr. Chairman, the best way of having peace among all of the regional organizations is to give them the money, let them create collectively their own organization that is going to respect their individual regional differences, and, at the same time, let them come together where there is a territorial consensus or a need to meet at a territorial level.

Mr. Chairman, I don't know, I can't predict where this is going. It may go the route we did up to 1991 with a comprehensive claim approach and then eventually that broke down and we started going to regional claims. Maybe that's the only way it will ever work, Mr. Chairman. I don't know. But we have to respect the right of each claimant organization to choose their own path. We can't determine that for them. Otherwise we're as colonial as we accuse the federal government of being.

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to mention, as well, when I was listing off the participants of the Aboriginal Summit, I think I omitted the Tlicho, and the Tlicho are active participants, as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Mr. Villeneuve.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Okay. That gets back to my original question, then, about getting the aboriginal organizations to be more autonomous, at arm's length with the GNWT in their own land claim issues and devolution. So how does this government expect to even...You know, some of these land claim talks could last another 10 years. How are we going to approach devolution with these unknowns? How are we going to even talk about devolution? Why are we even talking about devolution if we know it could be fragmented? It could just all crash down anytime now. Anytime that any aboriginal organization decides to pull the plug, devolution could just go down the drain. So with all the work, and the money, and the resources that all the other aboriginal groups are putting together, putting into this whole process, and then somebody comes up with the bright

idea that, yes, it's not going to work because we have a better idea. So I just want to know, why are we always just on one path to devolution and resource revenue sharing and maybe we should start thinking of a contingency plan or a contingency organization, organizational approach or management negotiation tactics or something that would address these as we go along and when they do come up, say, you know...What do we do if the pipeline starts construction before anything is signed, like resource revenue sharing and stuff like that? What options will we have after that? Is that something that Aboriginal Affairs researches? Is there any plan B, is what I want to know, Mr. Chairman.

Mahsi, Mr. Villeneuve. Mr. Handley.

Yes, Mr. Chairman, I don't know if I'd call it a plan B, but the Inuvialuit, Gwich'in, Sahtu, Tlicho all have signed agreements. They all have implementation processes to move ahead with implementing their claims, their modern treaties. They will move ahead at their own pace. It won't be the same for everybody. If I can, Mr. Chairman, the Tlicho have their own schedule all laid out of when they will move ahead with self-government, because theirs is a self-government agreement. In the Sahtu, we have individual communities moving ahead with discussions on self-government. The same is true in the Beau-Del area. So, Mr. Chairman, each of those is going to move ahead at its own pace. Because some of the aboriginal organizations have not negotiated a final claim yet isn't a reason to hold up everybody else because that is really interrupting someone else's right. So I see self-government as a process that'll move along as fast as regions and communities are ready to take it on. It won't be lock-step right across the Territories.

Mr. Chairman, devolution itself will continue. Devolution will continue in the sense of discussions of transferring province-like powers held by the Department of Indian Affairs, by the federal government, to the territorial government. So it will become more and more the territory, more and more province-like. That can still continue and will continue. The same with resource revenue sharing. That can still continue even though claims are not settled. But those that have settled claims will not be able to take on self-government responsibilities until they have a claim and become a self-government or become a government, because they're not a government until they have a settled claim.

So, Mr. Chairman, the way I see it, it isn't a plan A or plan B, but it's a matter of respecting every region's right to move at its own pace, in its own direction, and yet do it in a way that doesn't interfere with someone else's right. I think it can happen and there is no reason that it all has to be lock-step. But at the same time, Mr. Chairman, I must say that nobody has a veto over what somebody else does. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Handley. Next on the list I have Mr. Braden.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Looking at the pages before us, 134 and 135, and doing a bit of math here -- and my math is always subject to correction, Mr. Chairman -- I come up with a total commitment here between ourselves and the federal government of $2.65 million. That's a lot of money on these two pages: $2.65 million dollars, and $1.43 million of that is ours; $1.22 million is the federal government. So some of this, Mr. Chairman, has got relatively specific assignment. There's $225,000 identified to the Metis Nation. That's quite specific. There's $100,000 identified for the Dene Nation. That's quite specific. There are, let's see, one, two, three, four, five other sort of categories, if you will, or specific lines identified here. It's these five that I guess I find most concerning, Mr. Chairman, because they are so wide and open in their scope. There is little for me to hang onto here in terms of accountability, seeing what the expectations are, knowing what, you know, if we're going to commit some taxpayers' money what then can we expect will be the value that we will get out of it.

Mr. Chairman, I am fully in support of this government, the territorial government, lending reasonable financial support to aboriginal governments. That is not at issue. It is that we have identified, as I say, at least on these two pages by my assessment, five different pots of money, all of them really, as I say, very wide in scope with very little specific tangible criteria on them. So if I have an ask here, it is can the Minister take a really hard look at these allocations and, over the course of the fiscal year, see if they can be amalgamated, or streamlined, or put into a form that is going to allow for more accountability and more certainty of what the value will be when these dollars are allocated to the aboriginal organizations? As I say, between these two pages here, there is $2.6 million. I don't think it's unreasonable to ask that we see some more shape and form attached to these expenditures, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Minister Handley.

Mr. Chairman, let me say that, first of all, the $225,000 to the Metis Nation, that is money that goes back to an agreement that was made some time ago. So that's hard to just fold up something we agreed to with the Metis.

So with the $75,000 for aboriginal organizations' special events funding, that's a pot of money that's first-come, first-served that we give out as grants. Over the year, we always have some request for money to help with the meeting that wasn't contemplated.

Mr. Chairman, I agree with what Mr. Braden has suggested and I would like to do that. I don't think that it is anymore right for us to tell aboriginal governments and associations how to spend their money than it is for the federal government to tell us how we have to spend our money. We are elected. We will decide. Aboriginal leaders are elected; they'll decide. Then we have an accountability framework in place to make sure that the money isn't misappropriated in some way. That would be the arrangement I would like and that's what I hear Mr. Braden suggesting. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. Mr. Braden

Mr. Chairman, if we could expect that at some point in time through the course of the year, or at least in the next budget planning cycle, to see some consolidation of these funds and what they are used for, I would welcome that, but I am not going to stand in the way of approving this, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Braden. Minister Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I don't see any problem bringing it forward at the time we do our business planning. I would want to do this in partnership with the aboriginal government, of course. I can't just take their money and roll it up into one ball for them. We have to do some consultation here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Minister Handley. Next on the list I have Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a few quick comments. I am happy to see that the government is providing money for aboriginal organizations. Last year, the Gwich'in decided to step back in terms of self-government negotiations with the Inuvialuit and the non-aboriginal people. I am just wondering, if that's the case, how is that money broken down in terms of their commitment to sit down at the table and talk about self-government? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Pokiak. Minister Handley.

Mr. Chairman, I know there was some discussion about it over the last months, but it was over the last two or three weeks that the president of the Gwich'in Tribal Council formally gave notice that they were separating and doing their own thing. So, Mr. Chairman, from our perspective, we are going to have two different sets of negotiations and two different negotiators, one for the Inuvialuit, one for the Gwich'in, and we will take the money and divide it up into some equitable basis yet to be determined following the confirmation from the Gwich'in that they are no longer in the joint process. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Handley. Mr. Pokiak.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am just wondering if the Gwich'in decide to come back and talk with the Inuvialuit and the non-aboriginal people, is that door open to them yet?