Floyd Roland

I think that’s the unique feature of this regional leaders approach. It hasn’t been the Government of the Northwest Territories that sets the agenda; it is a collaborative approach. We ask every region if they have a specific item or issue that they want to have dealt with. In some cases, we’ve dealt with the education piece or the Water Strategy or the Wildlife Act, to a certain degree, about who’s going to be involved and not and can they put the right people to the table. In fact, one of the agenda items we had as a regular update was the agreement-in-principle and at some meetings there...

Again, the Northern Leaders’ Forum was a side table on Creating Our Future Together. The regional leaders’ table is the one we’re working with and reaching out to the regional leaders and community leaders on that. Quite clearly, as we’ve shown already, the Sahtu have not signed this agreement, but they wanted to have meetings where they brought the elders, youth and representatives from many of their communities to discuss the AIP and go over it. We’ve cost-shared the initial meeting and are looking at following up with an additional meeting that brings in the rest of their communities. One...

I guess this is where I can say maybe some of our diligent work has caused concern amongst the groups that they’re looking at the agreement-in-principle and that the net fiscal benefit portion on resource revenue sharing is a way of making up the gap that we’ve identified. It was through this department that we looked at all the negotiations that are going around in the Northwest Territories, the items of discussion at those tables and we did a, it was, I would say, a conservative figure about the shortfall that we would be seeing if there was not enough funding put in place and what we were...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It has been Mr. Stewart who has been working with a number of the staff in our office to prepare the work and respond to many of the concerns that have been arising through a number of the meetings and the ongoing work as well. Short of giving his phone number out, he has been directly involved, and with an executive contact list, I’m sure they’ve already have got him on speed dial. Thank you.

The Northern Leaders’ Forum, we came to the Assembly, got the budget, and as I explained to Members when we went through that process initially, what we thought we would do is one large process and I came back and informed Members that the regional leaders said they knew best what was happening in their regions, so we divvied up the budget to provide regional leaders. For example, this is the way it worked out -- and we’ll get a written document together, a draft that will show. There’s a base amount where everybody got the equal base amount of $19,000. There was a cost of living differential...

No, this is all our own contributions, Government of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. If the Members recall, in fact that budget item used to be significantly higher when we were much more active. Through our reduction scenarios, we turned in some of that money. That amount right now is for existing salaries and O and M of our existing staff that are in place. That’s why I stated that as we step up this work now and begin the work plan, the scheduling, looking at the resources, we’ll be able to tap into some of the money the federal government have signed onto under this agreement-in-principle, but we will have to additionally come back for additional...

As I said, through Executive I would have to come back to this House requesting additional funds through Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations through the regional leaders’ approach continue to use that as one of the tools. The other area is to get as much information out to the public, both Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people, so that as they become more familiar with this they will be able to ask the same questions that are being asked of us to a certain degree and be in a better position to respond in some cases when they’re asked what their position is if their leadership...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The non-government sector, we do have a difference of definitions, obviously. Clearly the non-government sector as we look at it, and that’s where you look at the multi-year funding aspect as contracting services by the Government of the Northwest Territories to these organizations. I would say in fact the Executive is already playing that role. When you look at the multi-year funding approach, that came through Cabinet. The work that we’re doing now on the Stabilization Fund, that’s come through Cabinet. As well, the NGO forum that’s put in place to pull the groups...

Our role as Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations is support to departments in ensuring that we meet our obligations. The role that we have within Executive will be, or the advice that we provide to Executive, and that’s where the budget and the work that we’ll initiate. For example, under development and mandates, as we go forward we would be involved to ensure that as those mandates are developed, that we are honouring our commitments of existing agreements and protecting those discussions that are ongoing right now. For example, some of the discussions that are ongoing there...