Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, my comments are going to be specific to the

comments I heard from the Minister. Through the discussion of details, I will ask the Minister about some things I’d like to know in detail.

Regarding political development in the Northwest Territories, we have some issues that are pretty sensitive right now to the aboriginal governments in the North here. Here, we try to build a common front for political development to look at some bigger issues on the table regarding resource revenue sharing, devolution, the common vision for people in the Northwest Territories. How do we all get along? We’ve got some issues here that this government has rubbed up against some of the aboriginal groups, governments, in terms of rights, working together. The Minister has indicated that he has close to $800,000 in the budget to develop some common front here. Within the time frame that we have and the state we are in with some of the aboriginal governments, I am curious and wondering about this department’s strategy in terms of how do we get everybody onside to say we’re in this together, we’re going to work on this towards the end of this government here to sit down with Ottawa and hammer out some of these bigger issues here.

I think the one thing that we really need, and it’s not there anymore, is the Aboriginal Summit. We kind of broke up the aboriginal governments here. We have a couple of the aboriginal who are on with the Aboriginal Summit, but some of the aboriginal governments are not with the Aboriginal Summit. It’s a fragmented coalition or front and that really concerns me in terms of moving forward there, Mr. Chair.

Another one is the self-government funding, self-government requirements, you know, the costing out. Once you start negotiating these self-government agreements and we start to see the finalization of these agreements and costing out of these agreements here, it’s going to take quite a considerable amount of effort by this government and the aboriginal governments to put down a final number on self-government agreements here.

Mr. Chair, the Minister did talk about, on page 3 of 3 on a revised mandate, a new negotiation of the Northwest Territories, the result, new or revised mandates will be responsive to the lessons learned and precedents set by the finalized agreements. I want to maybe ask some questions when it comes to this section in the details in terms of the revised mandate, in terms of our side being included in the loop of things, in terms of what is the revised mandate, where does it stem from and how it’s going to be impacted in terms of the agreements that are going to be put in place in terms of self-government agreements.

Mr. Chair, this is a very important department for me. It has to deal with lots of aboriginal rights, treaty rights, Metis rights, so I really wanted to also

ask the Minister in terms of his draft frameworks, I think it’s a draft framework on consultation. I know I have some information, what I got from the website there in terms of what the department is looking at in terms of consultation. It’s something I look forward to having the Minister come forward with in terms of finalizing it, in terms of finalizing the consultation policy and the framework and see where we can go with that there.

So, Mr. Chair, those are my comments for the Minister. Again, as I said, this is a very important, for me, it’s a very important document. This is a nation-to-nation building document for myself. We have aboriginal governments that believe strongly in their treaties, aboriginal governments believe strongly in the land claims settlements, aboriginal governments who are negotiating their own government through a self-government arrangement, yet we have the federal government sitting there waiting to see, you know, how are we going to work together in this small Northwest Territories. We’ve got aboriginal governments that own huge tracts of land, you know, even had the power on it.

I was in Deline over the weekend and people are talking about where did we let the one government have power on our land. There are agreements. When did those agreements come in place in terms of aboriginal and treaty rights? So they want to have that kind of discussion. Where did we sign over? So I guess that’s part of the political development I see. Key areas that need to be answered, that need to be discussed and they need to be talked about. Maybe that’s kind of the guidelines for consultation with the aboriginal government.

Metis rights is one that still bothers me today. It’s a university entry program they have with the federal government that says aboriginal people can apply for that program. You ask the federal government and they say only Inuit and First Nations, but not Metis. We administer a program and it still bugs me today. I talked to Minister Strahl, Minister Prentice. The last government said they were going to look at it. They never looked at it. And Metis is still not included in there. That’s a shame, you know. They said that they’re breaking their own law that says aboriginal. In the definition of aboriginal it says Metis, Inuit and First Nations. What is the government here doing to help us to include Metis into that university entry program? This is what you guys should be fighting for us, fighting for the Metis people to be included in that program. I’ve got Metis members in my home region there that are saying this is discrimination. Yet, two federal Ministers said they were going to do something about it and to this day, six years later, there’s still nothing done. This is totally ridiculous in this day and age. And that, Mr. Chair, that’s only one program.

That’s how I see our Premier, part of his role as a Minister for Aboriginal Affairs. I could be wrong here, but that’s what we’re looking for from our leader here, is protecting, enhancing and strengthening our treaty and aboriginal rights. It’s key here, this department, it’s very key, especially today in terms of how we’re going forward. We just talked about one issue here in the last couple weeks on the animal. You know, that’s key, and I don’t want to raise it again, but I think I will leave the rest of my comments for the detail, Mr. Chair.