Good afternoon, colleagues. Item 2, Ministers’ statements. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.

Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Item 3, Members’ statements. The honourable Member for Nahendeh, Mr. Menicoche.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. As my respected colleagues on this side of the Assembly know, the job of MLA is not an easy one. We are not like Official Opposition down south. We don’t oppose the government just for the sake of opposing. We, in fact, elected this government. Our job is to represent the interests of

our constituents and to build consensus in this Assembly, and this is what I try to do.

Today I would like to give credit where credit is due. On Monday we celebrated a progress that has been made on finalizing the Devolution Agreement. Congratulations to our Premier, the Aboriginal government leaders and their officials for bringing us to this historic threshold.

This is big news, as devolution is a stated priority of this Legislative Assembly. Last Friday we celebrated the Tlicho Government coming on board with this process that will bring resource revenues and increase authorities to the North.

In the Deh Cho region, it is no secret that concerns around devolution have been expressed. Our Aboriginal leadership do not want anything to negatively impact the Dehcho Process for resolving Aboriginal title and self-government issues. As the MLA for Nahendeh and as a Dene person and of the Dehcho, I, of course, share these priorities too. I have brought these issues to my constituents in meetings and in conversations with the Premier, Cabinet members and experts. In response, I have heard the Devolution Agreement cannot stop or take away from our rights as Aboriginal people.

I understand that our Aboriginal treaty rights will continue to be constitutionally protected. I also understand that land claim and self-government negotiations will not be negatively affected by devolution and that the Government of Canada can take back any land necessary from the Government of the Northwest Territories for the settlement of the claims.

My job, and our jobs as MLAs, is to ensure that our constituents’ interests are heard and that their rights are protected. We have done that and I believe we need to seize the opportunities that devolution provides.

Mr. Speaker, I seek unanimous consent to conclude my statement.

---Unanimous consent granted

I encourage my respective colleagues in this Assembly and all residents of the NWT to consider the opportunities devolution provides. Within my own constituency of Nahendeh, I encourage the Dehcho First Nations to carefully consider the merits of devolution. Devolution offers an important opportunity for the public government and Aboriginal governments to work more closely in land and resource management. Devolution also means that important decisions around land and resources will be made closer to home with the priorities of the people of the NWT in mind.

Devolution will also provide resource revenue to the people of the NWT. It is time to stop the flow of 100 percent of the resource revenues out of the North. It

is time to bring the powers closer to home. Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Menicoche. The honourable Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re in our final week here in the Assembly, and over the course of the previous five weeks I’ve asked a lot of questions in the House. More importantly, trying to get down to the details and find some information out, I’ve asked some written questions to get some details to allow the departments to come back and give me the information that I really needed. One of these written questions was given back to me yesterday, and it was in regard to the GNWT contracts that are awarded to southern contractors. It just confirmed some of the questions in Member’s statements that I’ve had in this House where we reward so many contracts to southern contractors, yet they come back with millions of dollars in change orders. What grabbed my attention was that I had only asked questions and written questions in the House here about change orders over the last two fiscal years. The number that was brought to my attention was very high and raised a red flag with me. That was near the amount of $40 million that this government paid in change orders to southern contractors over the last two fiscal years. That needs to be addressed and that’s why it was one of my very first questions, my very first Member’s statements in this House when we sat in this session. It’s a very important issue and it needs to be addressed.

We get southern contractors that come up to the North, that try to take business away from northern contractors, get those contracts awarded because they don’t know how to do the business up in the North, they don’t know what the costs are associated with doing certain types of contracts that we have in the NWT.

I’ve only been in the government for 16 months and I’ve only asked questions in terms of the time related to how long I’ve been here. Because I have a privilege in this job and that’s to get information, that’s to ask questions, that’s to bring things up in this House and let the public know what our government’s doing. I’ve got two and a half more years at this and we’re going to try to get as much information as we can, but this one here, these written questions that we found out 16 months in, close to about $40 million in change orders, that needs to be addressed, that needs to be fixed. We have to get northern jobs, northern businesses awarded those contracts so that we can develop the economic sustainability up here.

Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With all the recent attention lately on 911 in the territory, this definitely opens up the debate on why the GNWT still does not have a system in place, nor has the appetite to initiate the framework of a 911 emergency call centre.

Admittedly, this 911 topic has been covered many times in the past by some of my colleagues here today. We have heard from the very same Municipal and Community Affairs Minister, even back on October 15, 2009, saying that 911 would not be considered in the NWT until cell phone service was available across the territory. Now, many, even back then, had a hard time understanding why mobile accessibility was a prerequisite for 911 services. Now that the majority of our communities have the capabilities of mobile use, it begs the question again, why is this government not in the mandate of public safety for its residents?

The residents of the NWT have many more questions. Why has this government dragged its heels on making sure that all 33 of our communities have updated and real-time access to emergency action plans which could incorporate a standardized 911 system? Why has this government not initiated a framework of an integrated 911 emergency community framework call centre? Why has this government not allowed the programming of 911 calls via dedicated circuits to a centralized public safety answering point somewhere in the NWT, thus allowing for potentially more jobs in our communities? If costs were such a factor, why has this government not worked with southern established 911 call centres, like in places like Edmonton, Alberta, to piggyback on what is currently an established and tested call centre?

Public safety is a mandate of public government. Just because this government provides money for community emergency services through capital funding and gas tax funding, it does not mean our responsibility to citizens gets passed on to community governments for such 911 emergency services. Sorry, but the power for such decisions is not for community governments to prioritize. It is for the responsibility of the territorial government to standardize such service for its people.

Now that devolution is well on its way, the Premier will be looking for a new issue to champion; therefore, I will have questions later today for the Premier for his commitment on the investigative framework of a 911 call centre for the residents of all our 33 communities across the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. About 7,200 Northwest Territories residents speak one of nine Aboriginal languages. Five of the NWT’s official languages have fewer than 500 speakers; six languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers, eight languages have fewer than 1,500 including South Slavey, and only one has more than 2,500 people that speak it, from the 2009 statistics.

[Translation] The government has spent $3.5 million on Aboriginal languages and a lot of the money goes to the Dene Secretariat. The district of education also gets a certain amount of money and also towards the schools. It seems like the Dene language is starting to decline. It seems like we’re also losing our language in my home community of Fort Providence. A lot of young people are finding it hard to speak their Dene language, and also in regard to the media, such as TV. Suppose if we did use the TV media to revive the language. In 1988, the Official Languages Act came into force. In 1988, this is what happened. [Translation ends]

…Aboriginal language are over 40. This age group accounts for about two-thirds of South Slavey speakers. Only 38 percent of Aboriginal people in the NWT speak their language. In the Deh Cho region, 58 percent of Aboriginal people speak their language, the second highest in the Northwest Territories after Tlicho, which is 90 percent. Only about 220 people in the Northwest Territories were able to converse in Gwich’in in 2009.

I will have follow-up questions to the Minister of ECE later on today.

Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What a historic day yesterday. Devolution has arrived after a long and a hard-fought battle. That we’ve reached this point is wonderful. I am in full support of devolution and very happy. It’s not something I thought I would see during my tenure here at the Legislative Assembly. I offer congratulations to the Premier, the Aboriginal governments and all the hardworking GNWT negotiations staff, past and present, who brought us to this point.

Today I’d like to follow up on an exchange that I had last week during budget deliberations with the Premier, and recent comments by the Premier. Just this week the Premier has been heard to say there will be an unprecedented level of public

engagement and consultation. We now embark on a period of public engagement and consultation for 40 or 50 days. We will then, apparently, decide whether or not to accept the terms of the Devolution Final Agreement and sign off on it. It’s unclear who will be making that decision. According to the Premier, it will be the GNWT and its partners. Who are the partners, I asked. Aboriginal governments, I’m told.

As I tried to say last week, I’m seriously concerned about several aspects of the consultation plan. Just where do the opinions of the general public get considered in the proposed consultation and engagement scenario? I see no opportunity for a large segment of the public, specifically those not represented by an Aboriginal government, to influence the decision to sign off on the final agreement or not. Oh, but those residents are represented by the GNWT, is the answer. I’ve heard that said by one or another Cabinet Minister more than once. Unfortunately, those NWT residents do not agree with the Premier, and currently there is little trust among the general public that the upcoming public engagement will allow for those residents’ opinions to be considered and appreciated

Just what will the Premier do if there is a groundswell of public opinion against signing off on the Devolution Final Agreement? Not very much, I’m afraid. Just this morning Premier McLeod informed an interviewer that devolution is a done deal; no changes are expected. Why, then, are we wasting money on a public engagement process when it will result in absolutely no change?

I will have questions for the Premier at the appropriate time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Auditor General of Canada’s report on the delivery of income security programs contains shocking confirmations of failure in service. For we Members who frequently intervene on behalf of constituents receiving completely unsatisfactory treatment, the findings are no surprise. The report stresses the vital importance of ensuring vulnerable citizens are supported in their times of need and help towards greater self-reliance. In many of our communities, where there simply aren’t enough jobs, it’s income assistance or starve. For the injured, disabled and ill, there is often no other choice.

Unfortunately, unacceptably poor service is too often the case. Of 65 client files examined, 38 did not meet one or more key program requirements.

For the Income Assistance Program, it was an incredible failure rate of 90 percent, or 18 of 20 files. Failures included inaccurate payments to clients and late payments causing financial hardship, an issue I have raised with the Minister repeatedly.

ECE is inconsistent in processes and doesn’t ensure front-line workers have enough guidance or training to ensure adequate skills, competencies and understanding of program requirements. Other faults were documented. I personally know that one local non-government organization delivering services to families in crisis in the hope of minimizing rudeness and brow-beating assign staff to accompany applicants when it learns one particular client services officer has been assigned. Later today I will be sharing a poetic testimony of one vulnerable applicant’s horror story that exemplifies such treatment.

Ensuring all clients are treated with respect and dignity is one of the bedrock principles of public service, not matter what the service. For income security services, it is especially critical. This principle has been reinforced formally in reports dating to the 2007 Breaking Down the Barriers Report and before.

Client service work is demanding and not everyone is suited. Burn-out rates are probably high. This is all the more reason for skills training, evaluation and keen vigilance by management. The unemployed, seniors, single parent families, the disabled, and those suffering from physical and mental ill health are already suffering. The damage to dignity must not, and I repeat must not be worsened by poor service delivery and disrespectful treatment. It’s time to put this House in order.

I will have questions for the Minister. Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Bromley. Member for Hay River South, Mrs. Groenewegen.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to just make a few comments today on the subject of devolution and the agreement, the signing ceremony that took place here on the floor of this Chamber yesterday.

Devolution, we all know, has taken many, many years to get to the point to where it is today. As we have gone through different Ministers of Indian Affairs and Aboriginal Affairs over the years, the game has changed. We have come close to having agreements in the past, but these agreements were able to be vetoed by a minority of participants and they were taken off the table.

When the Agreement-in-Principle, the AIP, was signed here, when Premier Floyd Roland signed that with only two Aboriginal governments in the

Great Hall here, I privately said to Premier Roland at the time, it’s your time, you have the football, you have to run it towards that goalpost. Now, as we see in this government, our current Premier McLeod has picked up that ball and he has run the distance with it as well.

It’s not a perfect deal. It was never going to be a perfect deal. It was never going to have absolutely everything we asked for. That’s not the nature of negotiation and that’s not the nature of things like this. But it is a good deal. I believe that it has opportunity for becoming a better deal as time progresses and as we evolve as a territory.

I don’t want people to be confused, as Ms. Bisaro said the Premier is saying it is a done deal. We’ve heard Members of this House say we should go to a plebiscite. Why raise the expectations of people in the public by saying, well, let’s have a plebiscite, let’s have an opinion poll and see what everybody thinks? In fact, this government would not be bound by any such plebiscite anyway.

We are the elected leaders. We have the majority of our elected Aboriginal leaders who have come alongside and said, this is the direction we want to go. I think that to try to undertake a plebiscite would be giving perhaps some people out there that are not happy with this deal, the false hope that this is something that could be changed to a great extent, and I don’t believe that’s the case. So when we talk about the consultation process, I think we need to rename it. I think we need to talk about an awareness process as to where this government and the leadership of this territory are taking this territory in their relationship with Ottawa. Thank you.

Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Member for Hay River North, Mr. Bouchard.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’re in our sixth week of session, our longest session on an annual basis here, and as I’ve indicated in these sessions here before, this is a long period of time with our extended family, and like with any family, sometimes we’re short with each other and get tired of each other towards the end. I appreciate everybody here and I appreciate everybody’s tolerance to my comments during the last six weeks.

During the last six weeks, we have passed a $1.6 billion budget, which extends out to 33 communities for 43,000 people. We look at 13 departments and as we go through each department, there are staff that come here, there are staff that sit in the halls and their offices and listen to the Ledge and look at all the questions that we have for them. We’ve kept

a lot of them from their friends and family, and we’ve kept them working for the last six weeks as well. I’d like to thank them all for all their hard work.

During this session we’ve also seen devolution. My colleagues have talked about devolution today. I think it is a step forward. It was a big ceremony yesterday. It was a big day for the government and for the territory. I think we’ve moved forward. Is it the best deal? Can this deal be, like my colleague said, tweaked and made better? Definitely, and we can see a future, but at least the deal is being moved forward.

I know when we talk to our colleagues in the west, the Yukon, they see our Devolution Agreement and they’re kind of looking and saying, okay, maybe we need to upgrade ours. This is a process that’s taken 20 years, they tell me. Some of my more experienced colleagues tell me that it’s been here since they’ve been here. So it’s been on the table for a long time.

Yesterday we also had big discussions on the Tuk-Inuvik highway, which has taken a decade to get to here and get approval, and I think we’re moving forward. The Prime Minister announced yesterday their commitment for $200 million for this project, another big step in the Northwest Territories.

Like I said, I’d like to thank all the staff here in the Ledge, staff in the Government of the Northwest Territories that worked hard during this session, and I’d like to thank my colleagues for all of their hard work as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Bouchard. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We in the Sahtu want to live up to our fullest potential. It’s in our nature. We are hard workers and we believe in our families and we support each other. We love the land and we respect it. We live by Yamoria’s laws and traditions that our elders have taught us. This does not mean that we do not want to change. Our elders tell us that we must adapt to changes if we are to survive as a nation of people. They say that we will be strong if we work together.

Our goals in the Sahtu are the same goals set out in the 17th Assembly. In the Sahtu our goals are in

our hearts and our minds, but, of course, the Assembly writes them down and posts them on websites for all to see.

In the Northwest Territories, yesterday the draft Devolution Agreement was signed off. Now what? We have to set out on a course to bring education and awareness to people in the Northwest Territories. I believe our Premier has a plan and he has given 40 to 60 days to come back for us to have a discussion. The Premier has said we as

MLAs are going to vote on it to see if we take it or we put it back on the table for the federal government or the next government to deal with.

At the same time, we’re embarking on a process through the Northwest Territories on electoral boundaries. The next step for us in the Assembly is the constitution of the North, how we’re going to work with the Aboriginal governments, territorial government and the federal government. How are we as Members in this House going to represent our people?

We come from the land in the Sahtu. We know our boundaries. The elders have told us long before the establishment of a territorial government. We’ve known since growing up how far we go to the east, how far we go to the west, how far we go to the south, and how far we go to the north. The elders have told us, when you go to this point in the land, that’s when you know you’re in another country. I ask the Members here to think about the Boundaries Commission, think about the culture, think about the First Nations.

Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to use today’s occasion to talk about the Electoral Boundaries Commission. Like other colleagues of this House, I think it’s very important to make sure we echo our concern and draw out the process for people. We can’t use this as an opportunity missed. We have to use this as an opportunity to grab a hold of. Democracy is so important, the worst thing we could do is ignore it because we’d hate to put it at risk.

The commission is asking for the public’s input. As we often say, silence is assent. That’s why it’s so critical for the commission to get a good, robust point of view from our territory on what’s important to people, the pillars of democracy. They want our public, and certainly our public government, to stand by and represent. It’s a prescription for failure if we don’t participate in some manner, and that means input. That’s why it’s so critical.

This evening the commission actually makes an appearance in Yellowknife at the Range Lake North School between 7:00 and 9:00 p.m. If knowledge serves me correct, I believe this is the second last public appearance that they will be presenting themselves in some type of open format.

On February 11th I was there as well as a couple

other of my colleagues, and we were there with… I acknowledge that they were there under the sense that there was low participation, I’m going to say it

that way. I wish there was more public. There were about half a dozen people. The last time the commission rolled through about eight years ago on advice of how to form ridings in the Northwest Territories, it had bad, if not very low, participation as well.

I want to use this time here today to talk to people about saying that this is your government. This is how we form it. This is the type of relationship we need. We need your input. It’s absolutely important that democracy gets its fair representation. There are many pillars and guidelines that help form the style of government that we have, and the size of the ridings and what makes up the communities, things like language, areas where they represent, historical background, culture, but also size and population are very critical as well.

As I close, I want to leave it with this on the record: We have until March 28th for public submissions. So

if you’re unable to get down there and do a public presentation or speak your views, you can always e-mail and send a presentation. The last thing I’ll say is that you can also submit via e-mail through nwtbatteries.ca or, of course, you can e-mail them directly at [email protected]. It’s the public’s report so I look forward to any feedback.