Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’m glad that the Premier has finally seen the light to meet with the aboriginal leaders and for those groups that have been raising issues for some six or seven months regarding a letter he received from the Gwich’in Tribal Council on areas they had concerns about on the devolution process with no response to date.

Under the Northern Accord Agreement it’s clear that aboriginal rights are clearly defined in the agreement. It says none of the agreements that

abrogate, derogate from any of the provisions included in the aboriginal land claims settlement, including the following: land use plans, environmental assessments, land and water responsibilities, wildlife management, surface rights, subsurface rights, benefit agreements, establishment of national parks, territorial parks, conservation areas, and the last thing on the list is resource royalty sharing.

I was totally amazed to hear the Premier make reference that the Gwich’in gave up that right in their land claim and they’re not going to get any more rights. The land claims agreements are not concluded. The land claims agreements have areas that still need to be negotiated, the surface rights provisions, the royalties provisions and our opportunity to negotiate and participate in agreements which are already in existing land claims agreements with respect to the Inuvialuit and agreements over in Nunavut. Those arrangements were not going to be part of the Dene-Metis claim and the Dene-Metis made it clear that they were going to have a share of royalties throughout the Mackenzie Valley for the Dene-Metis people.

It’s very important to realize that these agreements are pretty clear. The agreement also clearly stipulates that, for greater certainty, oil and gas management requirements established pursuant to the agreements shall be compatible with wildlife, environment and land management requirements established through settlement of land claims agreements.

It also clearly states that in the event of inconsistency between legislative establishment pursuant to the agreement, that the aboriginal land claims agreements and treaties in the Northwest Territories shall basically have paramountcy or precedence over other legislation.

I think the agreement speaks for itself with regard to where this government stands. For the government to assume they can go ahead and negotiate without the aboriginal people at the table is totally unaccommodating in regard to constitutional land claims rights that presently exist.