I look at the Aboriginal Pipeline Group and its involvement in the construction and development of the Mackenzie Gas Project, and that is a good example of the Aboriginal people of the Northwest Territories potentially owning one-third of a major piece of resource development here in the Northwest Territories, a $17 billion pipeline.
My belief – I know Mr. Bromley and I have worked together for a long time – is that we have to look at opportunities to invest in resource development. Whether it’s the Aboriginal development corporations or governments or our government, in fact, that’s how real benefits accrue to people.
I know Mr. Bromley highlighted Botswana with their role in Debswana, the 50 percent owned diamond mines there by the Government of Botswana. The benefits accrue directly to the residents of Botswana. One thing I learned when I was in Botswana was that every person that graduates from high school in that country can go to any university in the world and the government will pay for whatever program they want to take. Whether they want to become a rocket scientist or an engineer or whatever the case is, they pay the full shot for every student that graduates from high school in that country. That’s a direct result of them being involved in resource development in their country.
The other example, and it’s a good one, is Norway. Opportunities like that might sound far-fetched, but we’re not that far away. The opportunities in the Beaufort are tremendous when it comes to oil and gas, and they could very potentially rival the Gulf of Mexico in terms of what is there. If the Government of the Northwest Territories of the day, when those resources are developed, want to get involved, we have every right to make decisions and get involved. Those decisions will have to be made.
The process to get us through devolution and get devolution, I think, is a big step on our way to future prosperity. To everyone, prosperity is a little bit different, but I think if we look at all the opportunities that are going to present themselves here, there’s going to be some big decisions for governments in the future to be making here in the
NWT. The big benefactor is going to be the residents here in the NWT, and they should be the big benefactor when it comes to resource development here in the NWT however we arrive at that. We might have differing opinions on how we get there, but I think we will get there and the people here in the NWT are going to be the benefactors of that.