Mr. Chairman, I’m curious about how come some of the land use plans have been moved forward and so on, I guess, from looking at what has developed in other negotiations, what would be upcoming, I guess, for Akaitcho, although I am not heavily or very minorly involved with the negotiations, Akaitcho. I’ve never sat in on any, but just talking to people and so on. There might be some pitfalls with the land use planning system or the land use planning process, because of the position the GNWT might take in the area of lands set aside for resource development or land set aside for protected area strategies and the various types of positions that the GNWT could take. So if we’re talking about Protected Areas Strategy, the responsible Minister could be ENR. If we’re talking about lands set aside for resource development, I’m not sure if that’s an area that’s set aside for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, or it that’s the responsibility of the Minister of the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, usually on the land use plans that are developed, they are developed and the principle is set up in, for example, a land claim agreement. Those are the ones we have examples of, and then, as they’re signed, implementation then goes into developing the actual land use plan. But we’ve also had tables that are in negotiations now working on a land use plan at the same time or, in fact, have probably got the land use plan further ahead than actual negotiations of the main table, in a sense.

For, again, different aspects, as the Member highlighted and I responded earlier, as ENR helps with the land use framework itself and land use planning. For allocations, for example, when we set a target of a percentage that would be set aside for economic development purposes in the future, that would be an initiative that would be between the Executive and Aboriginal Affairs and other departments. We’d pull them together. So Executive would be the coordinating role in pulling information from all the departments to come up with what we think would be the best solution possible, taking into consideration demands for programs and services. If we were to actually take

down full authority, and knowing that there’s a shortfall in the dollars that we have in today’s environment, needing to come up with some new resources in the future. Economic potential for whether it is the GNWT who ends up delivering a program and service or the aboriginal self-government who delivers that service, they’re going to need a revenue base to deliver that. That is what we take into consideration. For example, we use the MERA, and that’s the Minerals, Energy… Oh, I’ll have to get the proper terminology, but I think Members are familiar with the acronym of MERA, and that is to do an assessment of the mineral potential in the area and we would take that into our discussions of what we could work with and what the future may be for economic development in a particular region. So that helps us put that together.

All of that, though, as we discussed earlier, is in the mandate reviews we will be doing. We will be putting that forward. What we don’t want to be doing... No matter what we do at the end of the day, we want to ensure that there are enough resources available for whether it is a public government delivery or a self-government delivery, that the revenues are in place to deliver services that the people expect to have as these agreements get implemented. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I’m just asking, because of some caution in the future that I wouldn’t want to see a land use plan that consists of when everybody put all three governments -- the federal government, the territorial government and aboriginal governments -- put in their land use plans and then the area that each of them wished to… It’s not, I guess, essentially claimed for the various activities, whether it be resource development or parks or protection of the land or something that’s set aside for future resource development, that adds up to 100 percent and not 140 percent and everybody’s caught up in the fact that nobody wants to move off of their position and the land use plan doesn’t advance. So maybe just a comment that I hope that doesn’t occur when it’s time to settle the plan in Akaitcho. That’s just a comment, Mr. Chairman.

I would agree with the Member. That is one of the areas that is of concern to us when there are so many different levels of government at the table. That is why, for example, at the regional leaders’ table we agreed to work on a land use framework process. That work is ongoing and, in fact, moving ahead, I would say, at a fairly good pace, considering the complexities across the Northwest Territories, and we continue to put that effort into it. Hopefully, before the life of this Assembly, we’ll have something we can agree on together with aboriginal governments and ourselves. But that is the very reason why we need to have something like that in place, because in the past are too many examples where one agreement

is signed and then a different agreement is signed. It’s a piecemeal approach and that leaves it for very confusing and frustrating time when it comes to actual implementation of some of these agreements. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister Roland. The next on my list, I have Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, one of the things that often comes up, in my view of some of this process, is there anything that could help accelerate some of the self-government agreements being developed and, certainly, implemented? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister Roland.

Well, a supply of unlimited resources would help. We know that’s not a possibility in today’s environment. Because it is such a challenging environment and the different interests at the table, at times, as it’s negotiations, it's a tough process to come up with the right balance and from the different interests and different perspectives, at times, but we eventually get there. In fact, we’ve stepped it up, as we highlighted as we went through this process at the last main estimates review, of increasing our presence and getting the dollars. So we’re at 15 tables now in trying to help with the negotiations process.

On the implementation side, again, that’s another one where we have to… Part of the agreement is in place…have a clear plan on implementation. We could go through that section. That is the next section we can go through. If Members wanted more information, we can go through that at that point. But it is difficult because if we were to ask that same question of the federal government, you’ll get one response. If you ask it to us, I’ll give you a response. If you ask it to an aboriginal negotiator, they will tell you a different response, as well, because there’s all different interests being looked at in trying to come up with the best balance. But I think the timing of some of these agreements, in fact, if we were to all follow the Acho Dene Koe in Liard, that has been the fastest moving table we’ve seen in the history of the Northwest Territories. But even that has its concerns of how we can go forward on that basis. Then the issue of within the Northwest Territories we have some groups that overlap each other that need to be taken into consideration, as well, when we talk about negotiation positions. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I guess my question next being is: has it ever been put to these organizations, each of the individual 15 tables, about would it be in their interest to consider accelerating negotiations and searching for principles that would work to accelerate it? Has that question been put to them? Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, that direct question hasn’t been put to the organizations, but through just the negotiation process there are different avenues taken at times when it’s felt that negotiations have gone as far as they can and then it’s time for the political masters to sit in a room and iron out the rest of the process and details. Thank you.

What stops the Premier, or in this role, the Minister, of putting those questions about finding a comparable path together to accelerate negotiations? Is there anything that stops the Minister from doing this? Thank you.

No. Maybe a little further to that, Mr. Chairman, that, in fact, when you look at our Northern Leaders’ Forum, in trying to come up with a common vision of the Northwest Territories, that is one of those areas where we can come up on our own, working together and finding the principles we can agree on and move forward on and probably move things along a little further. But, again, each region is somewhat different, even when you’re looking at the types of programs and service delivery that want to be drawn down. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I’m wondering if the Minister would be willing to engage the 15 tables to ask them if they have an appetite to find a way to accelerate the self-government agreement process. And furthermore, if he’d send one more letter to Canada in that regard, which would speak to the same issue? It, perhaps, would be in Canada’s interest if we were in support of a process that was accelerated. So would the Minister be willing to find out if any of these tables would be interested in an accelerated process for self-government agreements? Thank you.

I’ll use the regional leaders’ table to pose that type of a question if they want to take part in something like that, but we have to recognize, for example, that these negotiations start at a point, for example, a treaty that’s in place that is defined by the federal government and in their instance, and then defined by the aboriginal group that is negotiating at a different level. At times, there is just not going to be an easy solution, because it is negotiating what that agreement actually is as a starting point and then where it’s being pursued to in improving to a modern-day treaty, as we would call it. So, at times, that just takes hard work and much effort to get to those conclusions. We’ve got a number of Members here who could speak to that work as it’s been done and they’ve been involved in it. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, are there any steps that the Department of Aboriginal Affairs does to ensure that the negotiators aren’t leading the process vis-à-vis they are keeping the process alive

as opposed to putting the challenge of bringing negotiations to a close? Thank you.

While there are definitely times when an aboriginal group or even the federal government may say that we’re slowing the process down there are many occasions when we help move things along. For example, in helping writing the proposals and the frameworks as we go forward and one of those examples, again, in sharing information upfront is the self-government financing piece where we went to all of the groups to identify the model we put together and showed them that model and what that, as a basis, potentially meant for implementation and the cost of implementing these agreements. So that’s an example of where we’ve worked together to try to help move things along and get a better understanding of what could be coming down the road. Thank you.

Just on that financial note, has any work been done specifically to show that it’s in everyone’s best interest to fulfill negotiations on these types of agreements to kick off the financial process for self-government? Thank you.

If I understand the question correctly, the work we’ve done around self-government financing in fact has shown and has been endorsed by the negotiators at the table that are involved in that to help them as we prepare our way forward, and then we’re working on trying to come up with a package of how we would advance this to the federal government. Ultimately, when it comes to the self-government financing, it is the fiduciary responsibility of the federal government. Although, for example, when an agreement is signed and it draws down a certain jurisdiction that we have as a GNWT, whether its transportation or housing or one of the programs we deliver, they would draw that down on the delivery based on today’s expenditures, for example, and the program as it exists and once they take it over they could redesign, but that dollar value is the same. It does not enhance it, because we don’t have that ability as a GNWT and that is sort of the work around the self-government financing piece, because the capacity issue is one that’s being dealt with. We’ve agreed, for example, in earlier discussions around devolution and resource revenue sharing, that we would use some of those benefits of resource return from the investment on resource revenues to help with the capacity side as a GNWT, but that still falls short of what would actually be required. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would just see it as in everyone’s interest if this question was posed to individuals. When I say “individuals,” I mean individual tables, that is, but I would see this question to everyone’s benefit if it is posed individually on their own timetable, that is if they would be interested in

advancing their own negotiations. As well as the fact that could the territorial government find a capacity to support this? I would be surprised that there would be very few people not willing to consider this as a viable direction. I would be very surprised if Canada felt this was stalling the process or ruining it. You know, I would believe strongly that there would be an opportunity and certainly an interest from their perspective that anything to accelerate these negotiations that could bring them to a closure would be in everyone’s interest. In other words, we would have closure of agreements, as well as access to money, access to authority and access to self-determination. So, Mr. Chairman, from my perspective, and certainly one that’s been encouraged to me by many people is the real question, is what’s stopping an accelerated program considering that we have a number of agreements that we could agree and few outstanding issues we could deal with separately? Thank you.

The self-government financing piece is an example of how we’ve worked together with the aboriginal governments and negotiators. We’ve worked with every table and given them the information around that self-government financing piece, but it is still a difficulty in getting it to a successful conclusion because the partner that would come to the table... Well, let’s use the example since we’re talking about aboriginal issues, bring to the potluck with a potlatch would require the federal government to bring their end of this bargain and that is still an area up for final conclusion, I guess we would say. We are very concerned about it and that’s why we’ve worked with all of the negotiation tables to share this information with them.

The other one, as we work through, as I was speaking earlier about land use frameworks and a Water Strategy, knowing that those are near and very important to the people of the North, are areas where we’re working with a common purpose. It still doesn’t mean it’s an easy process, but there’s a common purpose in trying to bring these things to conclusion, because they affect so many and are very important culturally and economically as we go forward. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Next on my list I have Mr. Yakeleya.

Just one question if I can see if I can get a satisfactory answer, then I’ll be done. I wanted to ask the Minister about the negotiations. In the details he had talked about the Northwest Territories realizing the economic potential in the Northwest Territories. Does the Minister have an idea or assessment as to the economic potential in the North right down the whole valley? I know some organizations have put some numbers to it, you know, in the amount of millions or billions. Has this

department put some numbers to the potential for economic potential in the North? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Premier Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The process we’d be involved in directly from there is getting the information from the appropriate departments, for example. That is, again, when we set up our percentages we would like to be open to development, we’d be working with ITI, for example, or with Environment and Natural Resources, as well, to look at the overall potential. We use things like the mirror process to look at what potential is in the area. We look at the oil and gas, the minerals, all of that to see what the potential may be. Now, it’s very difficult to come up with a number because, again, market prices affect things. A couple of years ago or just over a year ago we wouldn’t have, I don’t think anybody in the Northwest Territories was prepared for $140 for oil. Thankfully we’re back down, but it’s creeping up again. Or gold that was down to almost just over $300 an ounce and now it’s almost $1,000 an ounce or hovering at that mark. Thinks really do change. When you do estimates, you do it as sort of the estimate is based on the time frame and what’s there.

There is huge potential in the Northwest Territories when it comes to realizing economic potential in the Northwest Territories right from our natural resources when it comes to hydro potential, for example, that is a return on investment. It’s a very high cost initially, but it pays dividends for lifetimes. When it comes to our wood products, for example, is another area that’s available and I know, for example, when we talk about biomass strategies, could we develop that potential in the Northwest Territories to our non-renewable resources that are in the ground that can return investment again to the groups that would benefit from that. For example, some groups now, through their land claims, do benefit from that in a small way. They do get some resource royalties, a small portion, mind you, and we aim through our negotiation processes as we go forward overall government and there would be a part of that is, for example, on our discussions around resource development or devolution, resource revenue sharing as well. It’s a multi-departmental effort to come up with all of the different aspects that are affected here. Again, working in partnership with the aboriginal groups and that is one of the areas we’re having further discussions on with the regional leaders as well. Thank you.