Thank you, Madam Chair. Welcome to the Premier and his witnesses here on this occasion. Just looking at this bill and the work that’s been done, I have to congratulate all involved. I know it’s been a tremendous amount of work and today is an exciting day indeed.
I see an elders’ council. I see a justice council. I see a beneficiary’s board. I see the main council. These elements tell me that there’s been a lot of focus brought to these negotiations that the people are there to serve their people here, and there’s been a lot of excellent consideration gone into this.
I see an annual report at a community gathering to bring the transparency that government requires and the participation of the people.
I see a promise of efficiency. This is a new single government that will take the place of the First Nations Land Corporation and the charter community. There’s some efficiency here that is attractive indeed.
Again, turning over the decision-making powers to the community itself, to me, the rubber hits the road with governance at the municipal level, at the community level, and I see this agreement as taking that head on, and I really appreciate that. Again, it can bring a new level of efficiency and transparency. So, again, that’s excellent work.
I know there’s a tax agreement that goes with this and there are some complexities to that. I’ll look forward to the communications that the government will have, to make sure the public is aware of what’s going on in this new agreement, and there’s some unique aspects to that I’m sure.
The community is provided with this legislation, with this new law, the power to participate in many areas. For example, the education, early childhood education and training of their people, the delivery of health care programs in the Deline district, social housing and income support. These are big programs that have been delivered by this government, and undoubtedly there will be a transfer period. But, I guess, as a Member of this government, I will need real clarity on how these changes do occur will affect my responsibilities which previously I had and may have for some time yet. But some clarity on that would be appreciated on how that’s going to transfer. Does this mean we no longer will need to worry about staffing nurses and building nursing infrastructure and so on, or how does this change the responsibility of this government? So that sort of clarity will be needed and I’m certain will develop over time.
Finally, there’s a certain attraction again to the model Deline has developed here, ensuring that one government deals with governance required at the community level. But this is different from some other visions where a self-government model is built for all communities in a land claim area, regionally, one self-government. The relevance through the GNWT as a public government dealing with one regional government versus many autonomous community governments is something I’m sure the Premier and his advisors have considered. I would appreciate some perspectives on those two different models here for the context that would be useful today.
That’s all I had, Madam Chair. I just want to once again – and I know every Member here does – congratulate the people of Deline who are well-represented in the House today, and this government, the Premier, for his leadership in getting this work done. Mahsi.