The Minister sits on the Building Our Future strategic committee along with the Minister of Health and Social Services and the Premier. These are two important positions dealing with our social issues across the Territories. Would the Minister ensure that this item is a standing item on the agenda for this committee? The item I am referring to again is the absenteeism rates in small aboriginal communities.

Truly I am part of the committee that has been established. This is certainly one of the highest priorities that we have within our education department, working along with the education council and the Dehcho education authority to improve the enrolment, the absenteeism that’s before us, and to make that a successful project in the communities. We are making progress and will continue to discuss that as a priority item.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Beaulieu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Through this Building Our Future committee can the Minister commit resources or have the committee commit resources to the district education authorities in communities where absentee rates are the highest? I’m talking about resources so these people can maybe hire someone to help the parents get their kids to school.

This could be one venue that we can certainly stress to identify funding, but at the same time there has been huge success in the South Slave region, of which the Member’s schools are part of. We want to use that as a pilot project where they are almost meeting Canadian standards. So certainly those are the areas that we will continue to focus on and would like to use as a pilot project for the Northwest Territories. We’ll continue to make those a success.

Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Nunakput, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Jacobson. The honourable Minister responsible for Finance, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. While we have some involvement with

the telecommunications on the regulatory side, in the normal business operating issues we are not normally involved. So, no, I was not aware and I will have to check with the department to see if they received any correspondence of this particular outage that the Member refers to.

Thank you, Mr. Minister. In regard to the phone lines being down, you know it creates a lot of hardship on families just not talking to their loved ones or even your parents. Is the Minister willing to give his support to the community to make a complaint to NorthwesTel regarding their service?

If the Member would send me enough of the information, I would forward it to the department, through the office of the chief information officer, to see what option we have to, in fact, help them further their concern about filing their concern with NorthwesTel. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I’d really like to see if the department could also do an investigation in regard to what went wrong and what could be provided for better service, not only for this incident but other problems such as this that could happen in the future. Could we get the commitment from the Minister? Thank you.

We have some information that I can share with the Member that we just got though Public Works and other departments. So we can share that with the Member and we can have the discussion about necessary next steps to try to be able to be more responsive to this issue, if that’s possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Your final supplementary, Mr. Jacobson.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I look forward to seeing that information that the Minister has. The bottom line, Mr. Speaker, is the safety concerns of the people of Tuk and the people of the Northwest Territories in the remote communities if something like this was to happen. I know we can’t control the weather, but we had three days prior to the blizzard hitting the community of Tuk and the response to the community for the phone line system. Mr. Speaker, I mean, we have to hold NorthwesTel accountable in regard to their action in the service business. We need to get NorthwesTel to come and meet with the community. Is the Minister willing to help me to ask NorthwesTel to come meet with the leadership of the community of Tuktoyaktuk? Thank you.

I understand that long distance service has been impacted but local service and cell phone service is still available. But, yes, I would be happy to talk to the Member. We’ll make sure he gets this information and we

can help him forward his concerns to NorthwesTel. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The honourable Member for Kam Lake, Mr. Ramsay.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I find it hard to believe that as a government we still don’t have a firm consultation policy when it comes to dealing with aboriginal governments in our Territory, considering half the population here, Mr. Speaker, is of aboriginal descent.

Mr. Speaker, we have a duty to be fair. Successful consultation must include a process and a decision. Today across this country, governments are actively engaged with aboriginal peoples. This engagement undoubtedly includes a degree of accommodation and mitigation. Our government cannot continue to downplay the importance of inherent treaty rights. Consultation process needs to be fair, reasonable and transparent. I’d like to ask the Minister of ENR: how does the decision to ban all hunting in the North Slave region accommodate the rights of aboriginal harvesters? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there’s the short-term need, because of the precipitous drop in numbers, for the ban. The long-term goal, to affect the rights of all aboriginal harvesters especially going forward into the future, is to make the right decisions now to make sure that there are caribou, in fact, available to be harvested and so that aboriginal people can, in fact, exercise that right to harvest. Thank you.

Other Members have talked about this, but the Sparrow case in British Columbia and the Sparrow test, I wanted to mention this, as well, Mr. Speaker. Is there an existing aboriginal right? Most certainly there is. Under the Sparrow test, does it impose undue hardship? Undoubtedly, it does. Does it prevent the holder of the right from preferred means of exercising that right? Undoubtedly, it does. The Minister’s decision, he says that it was made on the basis of conservation. Now, in that Sparrow test, the government has to recognize a priority for First Nations harvesting. I’m wondering how the government has recognized First Nations as being a priority in harvesting, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

We have a clear priority and we have held to that and we have held to it consistently across the Northwest Territories. There’s no more outfitting. There’s no

more commercial harvest. There’s no resident harvest. The only harvest that’s permitted is aboriginal harvest. We’ve indicated that in this one area there’s a need to preserve the herd, but we’ll make an accommodation and we’ll provide the resources to go access and put to use the right to harvest in a carefully controlled circumstance with the Bluenose-East and the Ahiak.

So, Mr. Speaker, we are very aware of our obligation in everything we do and we can point to example after example of how we fully engage in consultation in the past, now, and we’re going to do it in the future. In the case of the caribou, we have done that and we’re going to continue to do that. We have support from the Metis, the Tlicho and we’re going to continue work to resolve the situation with the Yellowknives. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, the Minister talks about groups that are onside, but there are groups that aren’t onside, and I know he says we’re working on it. I’d like to ask the Minister today, how exactly is he working on bringing other groups onside with the decision to ban hunting in that area. Also, how is he going to accommodate the treaty right for aboriginal people to harvest caribou in that zone? Thank you.

I want to speak first to the issue of, yes, there are some treaty right implications, but the aboriginal right to harvest, as well, includes those of the Metis, and we are very sensitive to those as well. I met with the Yellowknives last night. We’ve had discussions this morning. I met with the Tlicho acting grand chief today along with Minister Lafferty. There are discussions happening this afternoon. There is active work with the Yellowknives and with the Tlicho to make sure that we can keep moving forward, keeping in mind the primary function and focus of the ban and the purpose of the ban is conservation so that, in fact, for the coming generations there are, in fact, animals to be harvested so that the traditional right and aboriginal right to harvest can, in fact, be put to use. Thank you.