Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I stand in support of this motion because of the fact that on one hand devolution can be a good thing; however, on the flip side of this, unfortunately, we’re doing away with structures that happened and were long, battled-out boardroom discussions especially for claimant groups. I don’t prefer to speak on their

behalf, but every inch that has been gained has been a long, hard battle, I believe, for regional land claim groups, and more so for unsettled regions that don’t have. In particular are the Dehcho First Nations and the Akaitcho Territory, and other groups more than likely down the line will want to negotiate a settlement at some point. This limits their opportunities to have a voice in terms of aspiring to become autonomous in terms of a region and working together collectively as a tribal alliance. This basically doesn’t really support their efforts.

I wanted to just highlight that in another time I had an opportunity to work in a forum where we were trying to move a negotiations process, and there are some very fundamental beliefs you have to try to get beyond. In this instance, there was a meeting that I personally attended, and we talked for about three days and they were talking about how, between First Nations and the federal government, they should be strictly bilateral, that it’s based on a treaty and it’s based on the principle that First Nations have brokered an arrangement through their treaties basically on the idea that it was a peace and friendship treaty, so, in that spirit, any kind of arrangement should continue to be bilateral. It took a long time to come to the realization that for us to move forward, we have to move beyond our fears, move beyond the concepts that had been embellished in our mind for a long time and had become part of the passionate beliefs that we had. After three days of meetings, it came to be that we had to expand our forum and allow ideas of a tripartite body of ensuring that First Nations, the Government of Canada and the GNWT would sit down at the same table and talk about issues that are affecting First Nations, but with a public interest at the end of the day that everyone’s interest and well-being of the NWT be considered.

That’s basically the philosophy I became familiar with. It’s helped me in terms of walking a path of ensuring that we listen to all the voices. One very strong lesson that I’ve learned through elders – and this House is founded on the idea of consensus – is we might disagree and we might agree to disagree, but at the same time we have to listen to each other to ensure we have respect. We are trying to understand what the other person is thinking in terms of their grievances, their perspective, and trying to not to become so entrenched in your position that at the end of the day you disregard the common interest that you are trying to build a relationship on.

Those principles have been the guide of how structures have been set up in the regions. Unfortunately, as well intended as this devolution process might be, it’s got some consequences. One of the ultimate and very clear consequences is it’s going to eliminate regional water boards.

Earlier I pointed out in the regional administrative structures within which the GNWT works, you have the Inuvik district centre, the Sahtu or Norman Wells district, the Fort Simpson district office and the Yellowknife district office. Then you have, perhaps, Deh Cho district offices, then Fort Smith, Hay River district offices. So you have regional structural organizations that could work well, yet we’re not building up on that. We’re pulling at the very foundation of ensuring that we work collaboratively together and respectfully within regions.

There was a time that this government was very strong in abdicating the idea of regional councils. Now they’re absent. Now what we have is tribal alliances. It’s most tribal First Nations that basically work to ensure the best interest of the regions. There was a time when this government funded regional councils so that municipal leaders and First Nations would come together and come to at least a common agenda of ensuring the regional interest was put first.

In that same experience, a prominent, very strong leader that I looked up to at the time explained to me how it is that we could certainly bridge the gap between what First Nations were thinking and the GNWT and its public aspirations to represent all the people of the NWT. This leader explained to me, regions are trying to set up self-government structures. Perhaps you think the path that you’ve taken is so far apart from what we think, but look at the regional district structures that the GNWT has in place. It’s so close to how, at some point, it can converge the GNWT and First Nations and they can work very closely together and pull their wills together to ensure we have a very good structure that works for all the regions but at the same time the people of the NWT.

I think we have structures and precedents in place that easily could be re-adapted, revitalized to ensure that regional voices do continue. I think this motion is constructive. The hard fact of reality is devolution is going forward. Unfortunately, in that same swipe, we’re doing away with regional boards. We have to show some leadership to the people out there that have perhaps lost sight of working together, becoming disenfranchised and at the same time being very fractured. Things are kind of in disarray, and I think this motion is a gesture of ensuring that there is another body that we stand for and that includes regional voices. Mahsi.