Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to start by noting that, of course, this motion is in response to the crystal clear and unanimous voices of our Aboriginal partners, who between them constitute the greater part of the residents in the Northwest Territories. It’s in response to the many residents who have similarly spoken clearly through groups like Alternatives North, the unions and Ecology North and as individual citizens. It is in response to the Chamber of Mines who have nervously, though perhaps belatedly, acknowledged that the regional boards are indeed working well.

We could put forward a motion simply objecting to the closure of the regional boards, and of course we would be ignored. This has happened at the federal level. But we have a situation where we need to try and do something to make the best of a bad situation, keeping the regional capacity in places that allow the boards to keep a finger on the pulse of each region and allow for direct engagement with people in each region.

But really this motion, rather than be overly specific here, urges Cabinet to sit down with our Aboriginal partners and discuss with them what mitigation can be taken, what specific actions can be put in place

and structures to address the gap that this will be leaving.

I guess the Cabinet might say that the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board will remain largely unchanged. Well, that’s a given and that’s the whole point here. In fact, the point is that all of the regional boards will disappear and the structure that already exists for the rest of the unsettled areas will remain, clearly a major change to what’s happening.

Cabinet might say that the Mackenzie Valley board will include at least one member appointed from an Aboriginal government, but the problem is for a regional project it doesn’t have to be the representative from that region. Representation similar in proportion, but the problem is again that the people doing the representing will not be as familiar. How can a large board be familiar with one region as to the same degree as it might be with the regional boards? That, of course, was the whole intent of these structures, was to provide that regional focus and the power, which I believe this government professes to, in the hands of the people to control the pace and scale of development within their own area.

The Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board is a similar institution. It functions without regional clans. There are considerable concerns about not having regional nominations confirmed by the Minister, which is currently the case over and over again. In fact, that’s happening as we speak, and the basic fact is that a representative from the region will be more knowledgeable and better at representing the best interests of the public when they are based in the region. That holds for the boards as well.

The Cabinet might say, well, who supports this? I think I’ve already covered that and it was clear, if you were at the hearings on this subject, that many boards, many groups, many citizens and even the Chamber of Mines were speaking out in ways that showed there was little support for this.

Cabinet might claim that these regional land boards were not meant to be there in perpetuity. Well, that may be, but they were meant to be there for a good while and to, again, enable the ability of the local and regional people to control the pace and scale of development in their regions. That’s what they did and they did it very well. With the number of evaluations that were done, clearly they were doing it very well.

Again, Cabinet might say the chair can appoint people to small panels of the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board to bring a regional emphasis, well, they can indeed, but this is not required and therein is the rub, because the federal government provides policy direction to the structure of this new super-board. Cabinet might question the efficiency and effectiveness, but again,

studies have been clear on that. They might say that there’s no reason to believe that a single larger board would not be as effective and efficient as a series of smaller boards, but I submit that this is highly debatable. Many think the new approach, in fact, will lead to an adversarial approach, lack of confidence, delayed processes because they’re not based in the regions, and I think that’s where the nervousness of our…(inaudible)…mines is coming from and the reason why they’re sort of shaking in their boots. Again, a highly debatable point that we need to raise.

Again, I know that Cabinet, at our urging, has raised a number of issues in the past that were highlighted in the environmental audits. Unfortunately, they’ve raised those ineffectively. Even after these amendments to the MVRMA those issues largely still remain.

The Surface Rights Board Act that is being put in place through these amendments, of course, comme ci, comme ca. I mean, there have been no issues, almost zero issues in the settled land claims on surface rights issues. All of them have to do in the unsettled land claim areas and where is the settlement on those claims? That’s what we need, not these sorts of things that take power away from the people.

Cabinet might say the creation of a single board is not intended to deal with every issue that exists but to focus on the efficiency of board operations already. I’ve already addressed this, so we’ll move on.

Again, the reference to the Land Use and Sustainability Framework that communities and regions have the opportunity for meaningful engagement and input into the land use decision, a draft policy of this Cabinet, this motion is totally in line with that. So I don’t think there’s any question to be raised there.

The opportunity for meaningful engagement, again, will be reduced. As a result of this, Cabinet will likely claim that, oh, there’s still the opportunity in the Big Apple. I’m sure they’ll go out every once in a while and have coffee, you know. But in fact, clearly when you remove regional land and water boards, that opportunity is reduced substantially, that’s what we’re on about here.

The GNWT has continued, I am sure, to press Canada to retain a regional administrative capacity in each region and so on. This motion is meant to very much support them in that work.

So, Mr. Speaker, we are saying let’s work with our regional governments, regional Aboriginal governments. Let’s sit down with them, find out what structure they have in mind. We’re offering some suggestions on what Cabinet could take to the table. But let’s sit down with them and have those discussions and have them in a transparent

way, publicly, so that everybody can contribute to the discussion if they so wish, and let’s capture those and put them in place.

Cabinet might say that the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board is not responsible for conducting assessments for the Legislative Assembly. One might ask where does that come from, what would they be thinking. We work with federal counterparts all the time and I would submit that with devolution and with these sorts of amendments that are not supported by the people, we’re going to have to do that more and more.

I’m happy to say, in wrap-up, that basically, as stated in the recent hearings on Bill C-15 with respect to amendments to the MVRMA, the vast majority of problems the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board has are associated with areas where the unsettled land claims are, not with the regional boards which have been proven effective and efficient.

The bottom line is we have a system that isn’t broken but the federal government is insisting on fixing it anyway, and against the will of our Aboriginal government partners and many residents. Our Aboriginal partners feel so strongly about this that they are thinking about taking the federal government to court. I know there’s a lot of work going on in that area. I don’t see how our Premier could ignore that factor or not speak up for their interests. Again, this is a majority of people we’re talking about here.

This motion recognizes this situation and proposes some mitigation measures to provide support to our regional partners to address the needs and gaps that would be left by C-15 amendments to the MVRMA, and it helps our land and management regime to continue its regional success with a strong regional role. In fact, I don’t doubt, as the Premier has said, there are a number of initiatives underway, so I would expect that the Cabinet should take this as support for those initiatives. But I hope they would also take it as making sure that those are very transparent and reported publicly to the people of the Northwest Territories and this House.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know my seconder, Mr. Nadli, and I both very much appreciate the support of our colleagues here and very much look forward to debate on this motion put forward today. Mahsi.