Mr. Chairman, when you look at the work that we have done on regional Aboriginal leadership meetings, when you look at the work done by previous governments around the Intergovernmental Forum, the Aboriginal Summit, those are the areas where we begin to build that foundation. In the life of this government, as I highlighted in my statement, there were 10 meetings we had. I would say that to judge the success of an initiative that is trying to undo decades of what some would say wrongdoing has been passed on from the federal government to past territorial governments in a matter of one stroke of the pen I think is quite a harsh point of view to be taking.
Aside from this issue of the devolution agreement, the AIP, I would say that we are having a much more successful process established and then again I would say the role of specifically Aboriginal Affairs at the tables and with departments to ensure that we are doing our work and ensuring are honouring our commitments. If you look at the language of the agreement-in-principle, incorporated in that throughout the document is the protection of Aboriginal rights, the Constitution and so on. I would say that the proof in the document in itself and that would guide negotiations going forward would be further proof that we have done our work and done it appropriately.
As for the specific issues of losing some of our partners at the table, it is disconcerting being the lead of this and trying to build that support over a number of issues, devolution being just one of those, leaves me to... I guess when you look at the big picture...leads me to wonder what are the actual specifics. Because earlier Mr. Krutko touched on the fact that it is a very complicated process and other Members talked about the fact that their self-government, there is self-government, Aboriginal self-government of the Northwest Territories. There are a number of land claim groups and there are a number of negotiations ongoing for comprehensive approaches that make it a very complex situation. I think it is almost in the areas where there is no over
the movement, there are still negotiations. The concern there is one of... It is a competition: the Government of the Northwest Territories and Aboriginal governments. I have said on quite a number of occasions at those meetings that, in fact, it shouldn’t be seen as a Government of the Northwest Territories competition, because if future discussions on self-government actually were to draw down authorities, we are drawing down now as the Government of the Northwest Territories and those are signed off in future self-governments, that authority would then be transferred again.
I think it has just been very difficult in the sense of decades of what someone say were wrongdoings and it all comes back towards this area. I am hoping that, as I have stated earlier under Executive, as we put a budget in place and hopefully have regional leadership in communities respond to that request, we can then be able to rebuild again. Thank you.