Mr. Chairman, the approach of community self-governments is, number one, we had discussion with the federal government to raise our concerns of the additional costs that would be faced not only by us as GNWT but the community self-governments themselves when we do look at those economies of scale or lack thereof, because it is broken down into a smaller and smaller group. We shared our concerns with the federal government.

On the financing of self-government pieces, we now, as I highlighted, brought our concerns about self-government financing to the regional leadership table and are now bringing that information to all of the negotiation tables in that area. As well, we request -- and many groups are starting to do this -- when it comes to do the financing, instead of punting the financing piece to after the agreement-in-principle stage, they are agreeing to have the discussion up front first with the federal government, which is a much better approach to the way it has been done in the past. Yes, we now have been bringing the cost of self-government financing to the tables right to the negotiation tables of the community as well as to the federal government. Our concern is that the right is there that if the community chooses to go that route, it is there established and that the federal government will honour that and by the federal government honouring it, then we end up bearing the cost to be at that table as well. Thank you.

I appreciate those comments. What I am wondering was, do we have sufficient rapport or do we have sufficient confidence from communities that we can be even more proactive

and perhaps be visiting with them about this before we get to the negotiating table? Is there a strong enough case to be made to support our position on this? Are we actually doing that if the opportunity is there? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, we continue at the tables to build on a relationship that has been laid before us by previous Assemblies. That is, for example, one of the reasons where we have gone to the regional leadership model of meetings that we can all put agenda items on the table and the self-government financing piece is one of those. The fact that they have requested that we go to the tables, the negotiators themselves and put this information out there and prepare in their discussions.

As for going in before a negotiations table is set up, the community self-government phase, we are starting to share that now with the leadership of our concerns and the cost of that. Will we be able to convince groups that that might not be the best process when it comes to the cost of doing business, I am not sure yet. Again, if a community feels that that is the route they want to go, they chose it, the federal government honours it and that drives us then in a certain area to either decide do we take part of the table or do we have the federal government represent the interest of Northerners at the table. That is where a catch-22 comes into place for ourselves as the Government of the Northwest Territories. But we are sharing that self-government information, the financing piece and the financing models with the groups so that they could be more aware of the impacts coming down the road. Thank you.

Thank you again for those comments. I am wondering whether it is at all possible to make a stab at what an estimate of what the greater costs would for our regional approach versus, say, 4 or 5 communities in the region. Is there is any kind of an estimate could be made of the greater costs if the community approach engenders? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, we have been taking that style of information from, for example, we do have our experience with the Tlicho Government and their approach to the government structure they put in place. We have the next community which is very close to an agreement, and that would be Deline, and we have done our costing model around that community so we could, and that is sort of the basis of what we have been going forward on, is the cost of what we could be implementing on those agreements in the community and who would be responsible for those costs. The tone has changed from the land claims process. The federal government said yes we will cover implementation costs for both aboriginal

groups and GNWT, to the point where they are now saying self-government, aboriginal groups and government and the GNWT, you will have to pay for those additional costs, and that is a very big concern of ours. So we have gathered the information on the Deline model, for example, and we do have on our model for the Tlicho, as well, and other tables that are in discussions. So I think we do have probably a pretty good grasp on what it is and it is enough to put it on the table. Thank you.

Next I have on the list Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I have a couple of questions in this section. The first one has to do with our relationship with the federal government and our office in Ottawa. Could I get an update on the status of that office and how many employees there are? The second part of that is the Minister’s comment on the value of that office to us.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. Premier Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, we have one employee down in Ottawa managing that office for us. At times you get a mixed reaction as to that office. It is not just used for Government of the Northwest Territories departments’ Ministers that travel to Ottawa. In fact, I recently received an e-mail from a group that travelled down to Ottawa from the Sahtu who was fortunate to use that and was sent back a very good e-mail to say that they were very pleased with that operation, saying that it helped them in their meetings and their staff position down there was very supportive of them. It is used not only for GNWT but for aboriginal groups, organizations and bodies that would travel to Ottawa and make use of those facilities. We try to accommodate those groups that do travel down there, so it is mixed, our approach. We have begun to do the review on it as committed to Members during the last business cycle. We haven’t finished our federal engagement process and that office would play a part and a role in that engagement strategy. Thank you.

Thanks for that answer. I look forward to the results of the review, if and when the government can get that done. The Minister, in his opening remarks, indicated, talked a bit about a discussion about a vision for the NWT and the role of the GNWT and that, you know, this sort of discussion on constitutional development will have to involve all Members. That is a good thing, but it made me think about the situation that we are in currently that we have the Premier meeting with regional leadership tables and discussing self-government and devolution and revenue resource sharing. As a Member representing Yellowknife, I wondered to myself where does Yellowknife fit into

this scenario or this philosophy. I don’t begrudge the fact that the Minister and the Premier are meeting with regional leadership tables. I don’t have a problem with that at all, but I just wondered if the Minister can advise whether or not there is a vision at this point or even a sense of where the city of Yellowknife would fit into the picture of the whole as we go forward and relative to, sort of, the leadership tables. You know, the phrase that popped into my mind is whether or not Yellowknife would be a city state, which has yet to be defined. But if I could get a comment from the Minister on whether or not the department has any sense on where Yellowknife would fit into the grand scheme of things when we are all said and done. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, the vision for the NWT, where we look at how we do business, I think is one that is evolving in a sense of what will the GNWT be after all of the negotiation tables are agreed to, signed off and implemented. That would have a direct impact on our municipalities in the Northwest Territories, so the City of Yellowknife would be into that mix. Yes, we do have meetings at the regional aboriginal leadership tables and formalize those arrangements within the life of this government.

Our process of budget evaluation, legislation, policy comes to Members of the Assembly and we work through that process. Although most of the municipalities and community governments would say that they are community governments on their own, they are established underneath our legislation here and the members’ representation at the meetings would do that; I would say does justice to the groups, our municipalities in the Northwest Territories and what type of services they receive from us. Going forward as to what might be the future of our municipal governments in the Northwest Territories is fairly hard to define. It is pretty hard to say, we have a vision for that, because a lot of it will be driven by the self-government tables and what they actually agree to here in the Northwest Territories. I can use, for example, the Beaufort-Delta. There was a combined negotiation process for self-government. They were looking at a public government model. Shared governance structures, that could have an impact as to how we deliver services in our communities and how that would impact our community governments. Since then, that has changed. If a group goes purely to aboriginal government representation, then that changes what that may look like in operation of services within a community. We are quite a ways away from that in a number of tables that are there. The Akaitcho fall in this region and Yellowknife falls within that area, so it is hard, at this table, to put out there what might be the future. It all depends on the level of

negotiation and what is agreed to. As those negotiations get to the self-government phase, that would have a direct impact on how we would work with all levels of government, and we would at that point start involving them as to how things would flow and the types of impacts that would happen. Thank you.

Next I have on the list I have Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just have a quick question here on the math. In 4-23 your actual for the compensation and benefits is $874,000 and you budget $872,000 the next two years and then dropped it by $60,000 but there is actually no change in the amount of employees, so I am wondering why that occurred, just out of curiosity, I guess.

Minister of Aboriginal Affairs, Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. This plan’s following on the second year of our two-year reduction phase. The position, this is the final adjustment. The position was removed, but the final dollars come out in this budget cycle because when we do have affected employees there’s a cost to that that we use some of the dollars to deal with the affected status and the transfer of employees.

Just for clarification purposes, there were seven positions in this spot here in 2007-2008. Is that what you’re telling me?

I’ll go to Mr. Robertson for that detail, just so I don’t get any numbers in the wrong place.

Mr. Robertson.

Mr. Beaulieu.

I’m done, Mr. Chairman. Thank you.

Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Somewhat to the same questions as my colleague here Ms. Bisaro in terms of the future of the Northwest Territories Legislative Assembly. The agreements of the aboriginal self-government, the land claim agreements, the settlement of these two agreements would certainly have a huge, significant impact on our Assembly here. I know the Premier in

his address over the past year has discussed the priorities of the Legislative Assembly with each of the goals that he’s indicated. One of the goals and priorities was to work towards a common vision for the political development in the Northwest Territories. This will be some time because of the significant negotiations going on on these two agreements; the self-government agreement and the land claim agreement. Has the Minister considered looking at future negotiations in terms of developing some type of framework for going ahead on the intergovernmental relationships with the aboriginal governments and the federal government? Because once these agreements are starting to take effect and starting to be implemented I think the Assembly here is going to be impacted quite significantly in terms of the jurisdictions going to regions and communities. The same question as Ms. Bisaro had in terms of what we will look like five or 10 years from now. Do we have a framework on where we’re going with this?

Minister of Aboriginal Affairs.