Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thought about this motion and due to the sudden developments of the draft AIP, I said there is something missing here. There is something seriously flawed with this process here. That is why I asked to have this motion come to the House for some discussion.
We need to look at a public consultation process. Mr. Speaker, I have been in the negotiations business for a bit before I became the MLA for Sahtu. Any type of drastic changes to our communities or the way we will run our communities, when we come to a process of putting an agreement together and having the people look at it and discuss it, we make sure that we have public consultation either be the Sahtu Dene-Metis claim or the Tulita Yamoria Secretariat self-government agreement. We do it in an open fashion. We talk about our values and how do we incorporate aboriginal community values, traditional values, Dene-Metis values into a government. We have our discussions with the parties, be it the federal government, territorial government that is there, and we come to an agreement. Then we have the public consultation that we go house to house to say, do you agree or not?
This is the farthest we have gone. This I did not see in this process here. We have to do that. I want to see this government here look at it. The AIP is also a constitution process, a process that we could have discussions with people in the Northwest Territories. People are going to be affected by it
and get ready for the 17th and have the discussion
also on the 17th .
Mr. Speaker, I want to know that this motion did not say no to the AIP. It says how do we go about going forward. Right now we’re kicking and screaming. Some of the aboriginal groups are kicking and screaming and saying come on, we’ve got something good for you. We’ve got to have some serious discussions on consultation and the process, because right now that is not happening. There are some significant changes that need to happen, significant changes that need to be discussed and, really, we need to talk about the values of working together in the Northwest Territories. If we cannot have this discussion, then really we’re truly fooling ourselves to say that we can work together on some issues.
This one is the big one. This one is the framework of the type of house we’re going to have in the Northwest Territories, and it’s going to be built by all people in the Northwest Territories, aboriginal and public government. We’ve got to have that.
This negotiation, certainly this draft AIP does not speak to that. There are some key components that are not in there in the framework. So I wanted to say that to the Premier and to Cabinet, that we really need to look at what we mean by partnership, and not to use that word very lightly in terms of developing the North together.
The majority of the aboriginal governments right now are not willing to sign onto this deal and we need to look at that seriously. We need to look at the constitutional process here. This process that I see in the draft AIP is a backdoor to a constitutional development-like provincial-type powers and it’s not the way to go. That is not transparent, that is not open and that’s not a fair and just way to look at constitutional development in the Northwest Territories. Let’s put it on the table and let’s have a discussion and let’s move into the next Assembly. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.