Thank you, Mr. Roland. Mr. Robertson.

Thank you, Mr. Robertson. Mr. Krutko.

In regards to contract services, do we hire any consultants or people in that capacity to do work on behalf of this department and do we have a list of consultants that we use to do the work for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs...(inaudible)... contract with a retainer as a consultant contract?

Thank you, Mr. Krutko. Minister Roland.

Mr. Chairman, I wouldn’t say we hire consultants. What we have hired in contracts for example under Creating Our Future, we have hired a writer. We have hired facilitators to do that work. As I pointed out earlier, when we have our office position in Ottawa take annual leave, we have to hire temporary staff there as well. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, I believe under contracts over $5,000, there are some contracts in there. I am just wondering. So you don’t have any contracts with anybody out in the public service for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs to do work on behalf of this government under contract services,

or do I have to pull it out of the contracts over $5,000?

Mr. Chairman, while we go into the detail of all the contracts we have and that is not a problem, the Member may be referring to contracts that are held not through Aboriginal Affairs but other consultants that I use as the Premier of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, can we get a list of those contracts?

Mr. Chairman, we will give you a list of the contracts we have with Aboriginal Affairs. If the Member asked me a question in the House about contracts with others through other areas of responsibility, I would be able to provide him an affirmative at that time. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Roland. Next on my list is Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate that intergovernmental relations works with other governments on behalf of our people of the Northwest Territories to develop and promote the interests and aspirations of our residents. I am led to believe that our Minister of MACA and probably other Ministers are as frustrated as Members on this side of the House in terms of our ability to influence the federal government on the issue of trespassers and squatters. What is this department doing to bring accountability to INAC and especially what are they doing to use any newfound leverage we might have under the AIP to finally make some progress on this festering problem here? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Mr. Roland.

Mr. Chairman, the question of the work we are involved in, for example, with MACA, we worked with them in preparation of the legislation they put together on the NWT portion.

On the bigger picture, involved with Executive and other departments on the approach to the federal government to see what work they would be doing. Unfortunately, as the Member pointed out, we haven’t had much success in that area. Our role is to work with land departments because they have a direct responsibility with the appropriate federal office and ministry and we help them with the preparation of those meetings as well as, in this case, with some of our own legislative work to make sure that we’ve covered our bases.

Thanks to the Premier for those comments. I just want to take him up on the other half of the question, which was under our newfound abilities to influence things and the agreement we seem to be getting from various federal Ministers

that, yes, it’s a new game now. We have signed an AIP. We are moving towards that responsibility. What plan does this department have to move to make progress on this issue finally, recognizing that we have not been successful in the past but we have a new opportunity?

Since signing the agreement-in-principle I have had a discussion with a number of Ministers and the Prime Minister about working forward in a transition process of not being caught unaware as we have been in the past with some of the decisions made. In fact, the trespassing issue, I think much of that would end up being transferred to our area where we would be able to deal with the trespassing issue instead of trying to convince a federal department to deal with it. So that is one area that could be alleviated as we progress, probably more in the interim. As we begin to have those internal discussions with our staff and their staff about some of the ongoing issues, those are one of those we can add to our discussions.

Page 4-23, Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations, activity summary, intergovernmental relations, operations expenditure summary, $1.703 million.

Page 4-24, Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations, activity summary, intergovernmental relations, grants and contributions, grants, total grants, $350,000. Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m just wondering what the Aboriginal Intergovernmental Meetings Fund of $350,000, it looks like it’s been there for a long time. Surely this doesn’t need specific funding here. This must be just part of our way of doing business here. I’m wondering if the Minister, to be frank, I’m getting a lot of concerns about this so-called consultation unit, if this is essentially what it’s about, from other Aboriginal people who have other priorities. I’m just wondering whether this is there for the foreseeable future or if we can expect that these partners will just be a routine part of doing business and not require this extra funding.

Mr. Roland.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The hope is at some point it will become a routine part of doing business, but as we endeavour to go down this process of setting up the regional leaders meetings, and that’s what this funding is tied to, it’s contribution to the seven regional groups so that they can take part in this. When we talk about doing these things, the issue of capacity and revenues comes into discussion and this is our way of helping them participate in our ongoing meetings.

I guess one last question on this. Do we get federal dollars on this to allow this to happen?

No, this is all our own contributions, Government of the Northwest Territories.