Thank you,

Mr. Ramsay. A motion is on the floor and is being distributed now. The motion is in order. To the motion. Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank Members for their indulgence in this motion. What I’ve outlined before, I don’t need to say again. I’ve said it a number of times in this House. I’ve said it a number of times since I was elected, and in committees and meetings. I just don’t think the Regular Members on this side of the House are getting the attention and respect that we need and deserve.

We need to be at the table when strategic direction and strategic initiative money is being spent. To me, that’s one of the fundamental issues I have with this budget: it’s that we weren’t there. I think this motion speaks to that. We weren’t at the table. We want to be at the table. We want to work with Premier Roland. We want to work with Cabinet Ministers. We want to go forward together. Please let us have a seat at the table. That’s what this motion speaks to.

Thank you,

Mr. Ramsay. To the motion. Mr. Abernethy.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I made a Member’s statement yesterday that talked to this issue. We’ve given Cabinet a hard job. They are the ones that are responsible for implementing the strategic direction of this government. It’s not an easy task. You’re going to have to make a lot of hard choices, including some of the choices that you’re presenting to us today with respect to the budget.

My area of concern is purely just around the strategic investment committees. Because they are strategic investment committees, I sense and I believe that they are in fact strategy. We are putting forward new strategy, new ideas, new concepts.

As a Legislative Assembly, that type of direction is the responsibility of all 18 Members. I understand that from there you would move and do the implementation and action plans to incorporate those things into the government, so obviously, I’m not suggesting that you wouldn’t do that as part of your Cabinet role. But when it comes to where these new dollars are being reinvested and how we’re going to move forward as a government to change how we’re doing business, I really do honestly believe that we do have a role in there.

I know that the response might be “This is a response to the strategic plan. These committees are our response to the strategic plan and how we plan to incorporate it.” I agree to some degree, but at the same time, within those committees, you are setting some new strategic direction. I feel, honestly, that is part of our role as well. I think inviting one or two Members to each of the committees as a liaison, or at least a sounding board and partner, and helping set some of those strategic directions — how you’re going to choose to make your strategic investments — is important.

Once those investments and directions are set, obviously, the role would fall back to Cabinet on the implementation of those types of things. But as far as setting those concepts and ideas within those committees, I really do feel that we have a role, and I’d really like Cabinet to reconsider their decision to not include us as active, participating, full partners on those committees. I’d really like you guys to reconsider that and think about what the intent of those committees is, which is strategic investment and strategic planning.

We have a lot to offer. There are a lot of really bright people on this side of the House who can contribute. Give us a chance. Work with us. We’ll do good things for the people of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you,

Mr. Abernethy. Premier Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. A couple of things, as this motion is laid out, and as a couple of Members have spoken…. We’ve heard a number of times in this House and through this process in Committee of the Whole with different departments of the need for involvement and decision making as a government in planning and looking at options or offering opportunity for that — as this motion puts out, looking for meaningful involvement and participation at the strategic initiatives committees.

First of all, let’s look at consensus government. The fact is that we as Members of the Assembly and I at one time as a Regular Member had a level of input that no other jurisdiction has had at budget development, at new initiatives or even forced growth areas, in that definition.

That continues today. We have to recognize we have a greater involvement than any other jurisdiction when it comes to budget development or legislative development, legislative proposals and that scenario. We recognize that and we will continue to do that. Hopefully, we’ve got some time soon with Members to go over the strategic document itself that we’ve prepared as a result of our work together on the core vision and goals of the Legislative Assembly.

In fact, we have decided we’ll go forward with a couple of committees and have had some discussion in this Assembly. For example, the climate change one, we have just signed off a letter to go to committee to look at draft terms of reference for a joint committee on that work. As well, the Member for Tu Nedhe has raised issues of service delivery in our communities. So we’re looking at coming up with and we should be very close to getting a package to Members on the sustainable communities initiative.

I will say we are willing to look at how we incorporate further work around our strategic initiatives committees. Like I said, hopefully, we’ve got some time coming up on this piece of work we have to do.

I think any time we do things of change, there's always an anomaly in every Assembly — the first budget of that year. We've made a number of steps here in becoming more involved and trying to change direction of this government. So that has caused, as well, some angst. I agree with Members on that change. We will have to continue to look at how we further refine the process.

Thank you, Premier Roland. I have next Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I support the motion. I feel that in a consensus style of government, it doesn't hurt to add more resources to the whole thinking side of the strategic initiatives.

I think that when the MLAs from P&P, Priorities and Planning, get together, there's a lot of synergy. We get a lot of information off each other. We spend a lot of time talking about all the various things that our communities are asking us to bring to the table and asking us to work on. This is an opportunity for the government to take advantage of the minds, I guess is how I could put it, across on this side of the floor. We have a lot of good ideas, and I think that Cabinet, with their strategic initiatives, have a chance to add some more good ideas to the ideas that they have and the ideas that they see as strategic initiatives.

To stop this thing going back and forth, we want to be on these committees. "We could do it without you guys" is the type of discussion that's been going on for a couple of months. I think it's important and there's no harm in bringing more people to the table. It's a good way to create additional synergy, I guess, as I put it earlier, in each of these committees, and there's no harm in bringing good ideas. All of us over here have a lot of good ideas, and each of us has our own strategic initiatives, and we would have strength in the various strategic initiatives that have been put forward by Cabinet.

With that, I'll be supporting the motion.

Thank you,

Mr. Beaulieu. I'll call next on Mr. Abernethy.

Interjection.

I'll call on

Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you,

Mr. Chairman. The Premier indicated our interest and willingness to sit down and further define the issue of meaningful participation so that we could move forward. Clearly, there's going to be a post-mortem of the process of this Legislature to date, once we get through this budget cycle. We have about 1,200 days left, so I think there's a recognition that we want to get things done. I just want to say that I look forward to the opportunity to sit down at that discussion — be it in our Caucus retreat or whenever we have the first opportunity to be able to do that — so that we can get out of here next week, get to work and do all the things we've been talking about since we got here, and move from process on to productivity.

I fully support and look forward, along with the Premier to the opportunity to sit down and…. Let's get 'er done.

Thank you,

Mr. Miltenberger. To the motion? Mr. Ramsay, I'll ask you to conclude debate.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I did hear some sentiment across the room there that there is some interest. I wonder why there was no interest…. We've asked in the past for partnership for joint strategy initiative committee meetings, and that hasn't happened to date. Again, the water is rough right now, and if I had to point to one thing, it would be the fact that Regular Members have not been included in this process in a meaningful way.

That's why the motion is here again today. I just wanted to mention that the Premier was talking about the Northwest Territories and Nunavut. Both have the most liberal budget-sharing information in the country, given the fact that we have consensus government here in the Northwest Territories and also in Nunavut. But just because we have that ability to share information with one another doesn't mean we can't take that next step. Personally, if we did do something like that, I would see us working closer together.

It's not much fun coming in here every day and talking about process and talking about why we're not involved and talking about why we're not consulted and finding out things from employees. It happens, and it's not very much fun. We came here to work together. It's a consensus government. I think the least the government can do is invite us to these meetings and get our input.

We've heard from Members around the Regular Members' side here. We all have experiences, we all have our strengths, and we want to bring them to the table. We want to have our input registered somewhere. Seven months into the life of this government, I really wonder where our input is. It's nowhere to be found, and that's what this motion speaks to.

Again, I thank the Premier and I thank Mr. Miltenberger for speaking to it, but we do want to be more involved than we have been to date. Mahsi.

Thank you,

Mr. Ramsay.

The question has been called.

Motion carried.

We'll now continue to consider the details. We are on page 2-29, Executive Operations. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. In the area of devolution, as we all know, this has been going on since 1988, when it was basically first signed off by then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the Government of the Northwest Territories and the aboriginal groups in the Northwest Territories. So it's been some time since we've really seen any progress.

I'd just like to note that the devolution process on resource revenue sharing is part and parcel of the Dene/Métis Comprehensive Land Claim Agreement. That agreement clearly states right in it that the aboriginal groups “shall” be involved in those negotiations. It doesn't say they "may" or they "might"; it says they "shall" be involved in it. I think it's important to realize, because they're in those land claim agreements, that transfer was not going to take place because of the Dene-Métis claim that was signed — an agreement-in-principal — in 1988, and then the land claim agreements that followed. The government has to do a better job of allowing those groups to negotiate that process, along with ourselves, to take that authority back from Ottawa.

I'd just like to ask the Premier: in light of your discussions with the First Nations government, exactly what resources are there for the aboriginal governments to fully negotiate or participate in a negotiation of the transfer of resource revenue sharing from Ottawa to the Northwest Territories?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Mr. Roland.

As I highlighted in my opening comments, we've identified a number of dollars to help us, as a government or Executive, stay involved in keeping that file alive, I guess is the term that can be used.

Yes, there's been a commitment to work together. That has been honoured through a number of Assemblies. In fact, this file goes longer than a number of us Members who were elected back in '95–96. I think the term was originally called the Northern Accord.

Part of the Dene-Métis comprehensive claim process was also an allocation of resource revenue sharing, and that is a piece of this — as well as self-government with some devolution, of course. We must recognize, as I’ve stated at the Dene assembly for languages in response to one of the chiefs, that the land claims that have been settled and the one self-government agreement that has been settled — and there are many under negotiation right now — have a portion already of resource revenue sharing, in a sense, of their lands. They collect already from the development of

resources on lands that are transferred or have settled claims. That is occurring to date.

We have to realize — all parties, not just the Government of the Northwest Territories, but aboriginal governments as well — that if we don’t reopen this through this process, there is no reopening. In a sense, once that claim is settled, it’s settled. It is constitutionally protected in that place, and the work to try to reopen it becomes very difficult. We’re all aware of that, especially a number of Members who were directly involved in the claims process themselves in a past life.

So it is a challenge. We continue to work with aboriginal governments and organizations to try to further this process. What we’ve established now, for example, through a new initiative in trying to formalize our working relationship with the aboriginal governments — this was through the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations — is four annual meetings with the regional leadership and then one meeting with each region and all their leadership or chiefs. That is a new way of doing business. As well, how we structure those meetings becomes more of a working relationship and then formalizing it. So that is a fairly different stance, and I think it’s more progressive in moving forward and trying to create partnerships in the Northwest Territories.

As I met with the leadership, the first initial meeting I had with them was to ask if there was support to go down this path. There is still some support, and there are still organizations saying that they’ve got their negotiations to go through and that’s their first area of interest. So that’s some of the focus we’re working on. It is an area that’s something we continue to put our energy and efforts into. We’ll continue to do that and try to build that consensus in the North.

Mr. Chair, I was one of the negotiators in 1995 who was at the last negotiating table on devolution prior to the election of the 13th Assembly.

We were negotiating a devolution agreement which encompassed resource dollars going directly to the First Nations government. We were negotiating benefits by way of economic benefits, ensuring employment, contract service agreements. Those types of agreements were being negotiated into a northern oil and gas act for the Northwest Territories. So to assume that the aboriginal groups have a land claim, and if you open it, that’s the end of it…. The land claims group is clear that the devolution is the land claim that hasn’t been settled yet.

I don’t want to put words in the Premier’s mouth, but I think it’s important to realize that what the aboriginal groups got in their land claim is the flow-out of the Dene-Métis claim, which was part of the

1988 agreement-in-principle that gave the aboriginal groups royalties throughout the whole Mackenzie Valley. That is based on a percentage formula that was negotiated back then. But they still have the right to negotiate over and above that through the devolution process, and I think it’s important to realize that.

But, Mr. Chair, the thing that gets me is that negotiations aren’t cheap. We know that this government, for instance, is spending $1 million a year just trying to implement that process, yet I notice that the amount of money that’s in the budget for those types of talks, those types of negotiations, has drastically dropped, from $600,000 last year to $125,000 this year. So I’d just like to ask the Premier: exactly how much work do we see taking place with $125,000, knowing that these negotiations are not cheap? You need lawyers. You need basically to have people present papers, present positions. So realistically, what are we expecting for $125,000?

Mr. Chairman, the Member is correct that resource revenue sharing is part of the Dene-Métis comprehensive claim process — in that piece. The devolution piece is yet to be discussed, and that, as I was saying earlier, will occur during the self-government negotiations that are continuing across the Northwest Territories. That eventually could open up more avenues for revenues as those discussions happen, more in a sense of when we talk devolution we talk about aid-based transfers, and that is expenditures being made in those areas of delivery to date. Of course, we say that needs to be adequately done as well.

The other process that was originally called the Northern Accord — and now we’ve termed it devolution resource revenue sharing — yes, was very close to being signed off. I believe it was the late days of the 12th Assembly. Unfortunately, that

did not occur, and that agreement was not signed off and hasn’t been enacted. So all the groups have gone through their processes to try to recapture that in one frame or another. We’ve been involved in the past, working with the federal government and aboriginal governments and organizations in the area of, for example, the intergovernmental fund, working with the federal government and the GNWT, and formed the Aboriginal Summit. That went away, and that’s why now we’re focusing on regional meetings and leadership get-togethers. So that’s what we’re focusing on.

The area you see in the budget is reduced, because there was no clear discussion as to where we were going to go as the Government of the Northwest Territories, no clear direction working with the regional leadership. So we scaled that back until we get a better definition and idea of where we’re going, and then we’d have to come

back to this Assembly for additional dollars in future years.

Mr.

Chairman, again, there’s

$125,000. So I’d like to know: what are we expecting for the $125,000? I know the Premier stated that we will have to probably come back for more money. Are you talking this fiscal year by way of a supp, or is it built into the business plans for next year?