Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I speak today on a key concern with the land and resources devolution agreement-in-principle, its development to date, and the essential steps that must guide the completion of this work.

As proposed, devolution means taking the exact same federal resource management and regulatory regime and moving it across the street as is. Yet Northerners have been clear that the federal regime is inadequate and unrepresentative. It is not based on principles of sustainable development and lacks a full set of socio-economic and environmental tools for integrated resource management that we demand.

This agreement puts in place a system lacking our own NWT stamp of improvements and standards. As currently conceived in the AIP, we will not begin the process of improvement until after the final agreement. Upon devolution, this government will be swamped by huge new responsibilities and battling to keep ahead of the learning curve while taking care of business. Contemplating new law will be unrealistic. If we’re going to fix this system, the

time to do it is beforehand. The resource management regime we put in place must be based upon broad, inclusive and comprehensive consultations with First Nations, stakeholders and the public at large.

What is economically, socially and environmentally sustainable development in the eyes of Northerners? We can’t sign off on dollars until we know what an NWT management regime and the consultation and legislation to develop it is going to cost, and what the feds must pay.

Northerners need an AIP that ensures this will take place before, not after we assume these responsibilities. Adopting mirror legislation is simply not good enough. At a minimum, the final agreement must provide for the fact that new legislation will be made-in-NWT law, with supporting programs and necessary dollars attached.

The recent interim government response to the JRP report demonstrates that sustainability principles and firm law are crucial. The IGR provides people with no confidence that this government has the maturity and commitment to sustainable development that must be the basis of our future resource management regime, although I note that there is time for that.

Why, while negotiations of this AIP are underway, did the Premier focus on vague and costly public consultations on our political future when we should have been discussing crucial questions?

I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted