Mr. Speaker, I guess first, the fund that Mr. Krutko spoke of -- $50,000 -- that was in a different category under the Creating Our Future Together scenario which didn’t take into consideration the agreement-in-principle. That table was a side table to the regional leaders’ discussions that were ongoing.
As for the consultation and approach, although much has been said about the signing and the timing of the signing, it all comes out of the framework agreement that was signed and a memorandum of intent that was reached in 2001 by the Government of the Northwest Territories Premier, the Minister of Indian and Northern Affairs, the Aboriginal leaders from the Inuvialuit Regional Corporation, the Gwich’in Tribal Corporation, Dogrib Treaty 11 Tribal Council, North Slave Metis Alliance, Akaitcho First Nation, Sahtu Secretariat Incorporated, Sahtu Dene Council and Deline First Nation. The Dehcho First Nation was an observer at those meetings. That’s where this got its life and moving forward beyond the talks of a Northern Accord that the Member has highlighted that is
included in a number of the agreements that were signed and that agreement appended to which, unfortunately, never got the endorsement and final sign-off, although it’s appended to a number of the agreements. Based on that, still using that as a principle, when you follow the history of this, it has included and been an inclusive process from the start and we want to continue that process. That’s why from 2008 when negotiations were delayed because of the federal election process in 2009, when there was a number of outstanding bilateral issues that were dealt with between the GNWT and the federal government and those bilateral issues were brought back to the table for all the Aboriginal groups to be updated, followed through to the process we found ourselves in. As the Member touched base, I had a meeting in late August with regional leaders and told them I expected a letter to be coming forward from the chief negotiators saying they’ve reached their mandate. In fact, in September that letter was sent to myself and Minister Duncan and additional letters were sent to all of the regional leaders to invite them to comment on that. That’s when we sat together in early November to discuss a way forward with that intent and agreed to a protocol work, as the Member has highlighted.
That protocol work we asked to have something, a draft by the end of November, which we then went into early December. I met with a number of the representatives from that working group and again asked them for an early draft so that we may be able to put language in, if there was concern with language, seeing as that was a protocol between all parties, that we’d be able to work through that. I was informed that they were continuing on a number of drafts and that January 6
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I met with the
regional representation of the leadership group again and some of their technical staff to go over the work and again ask for an early copy of a draft so we might be able to respond. We received a final draft I believe it was on the 14
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. We did a quick
review of that and suggested alternate wording, then met with the leadership again on the Sunday prior to the signing of the agreement and tried to find a way forward on there. Unfortunately we were unable to find a solution at that point. I guess what, as I was saying to Mr. Menicoche, is the letter we sent out to all the regions, the leadership to say we’re prepared to go and sit down and discuss the AIP and what it includes and what needs to be done next on that. So we’re clearly still there waiting for a response to that letter.
I say we’re prepared to do that but I must also say that if the wish is to stop the AIP and renegotiate an AIP, the Member from his past experience as a negotiator knows that you have to get a mandate to negotiate. As both chief negotiators sent a letter to the regional leaders, that mandate was reached. We’re moving forward on the agreement-in-
principle and I believe many of the issues that we can use going forward as negotiation items and set those mandates. Again, we’re looking, as I pointed out, to putting a budget in place to reach out to the groups again and see if we can find a way forward for those groups to come on board and begin the technical work.