Is committee agreed that we allow the Premier to bring his witnesses into the Chamber?

Agreed. Sergeant-at-Arms, if I could get you to please escort the witnesses into the Chamber.

Thank you. Premier Roland, if I can please get you to introduce your witnesses for the record.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my left is Penny Ballantyne, Cabinet secretary, and to my right is Dave Stewart with the Department of Executive.

Thank you, Premier Roland. As with previous departments, we will allow Members general comments on the opening remarks and once all the Members have spoken, we will go to the Premier for his response to those general comments. General comments, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just a couple of comments here I have to follow up since Mr. Bromley is not here, and express, as he would, his dismay that this budget has increased by 5.3 percent instead of the 3 percent cap that we had presumably agreed on. That said, I am really pleased to hear about the single-window service centres and that they are working, that the GSO, government service officers seem to be a successful move and I look forward to hearing further updates as we get a little further into this project.

I am disappointed, however, there is nothing in the Premier’s remarks, I will certainly have questions when we get to that part of the budget, but in terms of volunteers and in terms of NGOs there is nothing in the remarks here. The Premier knows, or the Minister knows it is an area that is of great concern to me and several other Members, so I will have some questions when we get to that part. Other than that, I have nothing else. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. General comments. Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. In regards to the Premier’s statement I just can’t help myself wondering which groups the Premier is talking about negotiating with regional Aboriginal governments. Are we only talking about the two that signed the agreement-in-principle?

There was a question asked in the House by Mr. Menicoche about trying to fund Aboriginal organizations that have concerns with the devolution agreement and it was pretty clear from

his comments that he will not be funding those organizations. So by asking for money from the House to support negotiations towards a final agreement, who are you going to negotiate the final agreement with, and more importantly, why are we leaving the Aboriginal groups that have not decided to sign and offer them an opportunity to come forward with their issues, negotiate them on a table that we can all sit around and get away from this idea of exclusion by simply not agreeing with the government? That seems to happen in most dictatorships around the world, but it seems like we’re starting one here in the Northwest Territories simply because you do not agree with the position of Cabinet or the government and you are being excluded or chastised for not taking or not participating in government-to-government talks, regardless of whether it’s required or not required. We do have an obligation to consult, we have land claims obligations, we have obligations under the UN Declaration of Indigenous Peoples.

Mr. Speaker, it’s pretty clear, from what I see here, that this government will proceed full speed ahead. Sorry, we’ve signed with two groups, we haven’t signed one agreement with any Dene organization or treaty group in the Northwest Territories who have treaties, regardless if its 1921 or treaties signed in 1998 in regard to Treaty 8. Those are the groups that have treaty rights, land rights. They’re the only group that has a land claim that talks about Northern Accord, it talks about royalty sharing in the Mackenzie Valley. Yet, Mr. Speaker, from what I can read here, it looks like it’s business as normal, nothing’s happened, we’re going full speed ahead and we’ll leave those people on the sidelines.

It is totally pathetic that this government, in this day and age, will continue to operate basically removing from those groups that question government’s position, or question government agreements knowing that they’re not perfect. They do not meet the objective of the land claim agreements and they do not meet the objective of the groups that have made it clear through written concerns, areas of concerns and not allowing for those agreements to even be discussed or considered, which took place over some seven months after a letter was sent to the Premier where the president of the Gwich’in Tribal Council clearly stated at a northern leaders’ meeting back last spring, where the Premier was asked, are you going to respond to my letter. I was there and I heard perfectly clearly, oh, I’ll get back to you right away. That was last spring. It took him seven months to respond to a letter.

Yet we are here approving a budget for a department that wants to go full speed ahead realizing that you have signed an agreement with a minority of Aboriginal groups in the Northwest Territories and yet you call it government-to-government relationships. So I would just like to ask the Premier, from the statement that you made in

regard to your opening remarks, which groups are you talking about negotiating with and do they have to sign the agreement, or can they agree to disagree and bring their issues forward and try to find resolution either between the Government of the Northwest Territories and the Government of Canada to find resolution to this issue? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. General comments. There are no more general comments. I’ll go to Premier Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The overall increase of the Department of Executive incorporates a number of the strategic initiatives that we’ve discussed through the life of this Assembly and also includes the compensation portion, the compensation benefits portion of the budget and that is why it goes over the target amount.

The areas of the NGOs and volunteers, we are doing work in those areas and we will be prepared to speak to them as we go through the detail of the budget.

On the agreement-in-principle, devolution, the comments I made in my opening remarks about funding and having to go forward and get our budget prepared, as this budget right now does not have funding that would be required to work with all of the groups, those that wanted to work with us to do the work, we would have to come forward early in the new year to request of this Assembly dollars to work with the groups that are there and want to move forward on negotiations, and the negotiations will take part in a number of ways. There are areas where bilateral discussions will happen strictly with Aboriginal groups, and that is Section 12 when it talks about resource revenue sharing.

There are other areas where we will deal specifically with the federal government; for example, transfer of employees to the Government of the Northwest Territories from the federal government, and other areas where it’ll be more inclusive of all groups when it comes to, for example, chapter 6, where we talk about jurisdiction and sharing of authorities in that area and implementation of the final agreement. So there are a number of different levels of negotiation that would be required. We’ll have to do a lot of work in the upcoming months to prepare for that, a work plan, schedule and prepare for mandates as we would venture down the road of negotiations with the federal government and with Aboriginal governments. Thank you.

Thank you, Premier Roland. Is committee agreed that we’ve concluded general comments?

Agreed. We’ll move along to detail. Detail for the Department of

Executive starts on page 2-7, but we’ll defer 2-7 until after consideration of detail. So let’s turn to page 2-8. Is committee agreed?

Agreed. Alright, Executive, information item, infrastructure investment summary.

Agreed. Next page, Executive, 2-9, information item, revenue summary.

We’re agreed. Next item, page 2-10, Mr. Krutko.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Can I get a breakdown in regard to the number of affirmative action candidates in those 61 positions, what level they’re at, and more importantly, how many disabled and women do we have in that department and what level? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Premier Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Out of all of our employees, total of affirmative action is 41. So 62 percent of Executive, 43 percent is government overall. So we’re doing better in that area. Now, affirmative action includes Aboriginal, and P1, P2 is a traditional title that’s been given. Aboriginal people is 26 percent and indigenous non-Aboriginal, 36 percent. For total female in senior management we have 12 positions. We have three female, nine male. Thank you.

Thank you, Premier Roland. Mr. Krutko. We’re on page 2-10. Executive, information item, active position summary.