Floyd Roland

Mr. Chairman, I wouldn’t say we hire consultants. What we have hired in contracts for example under Creating Our Future, we have hired a writer. We have hired facilitators to do that work. As I pointed out earlier, when we have our office position in Ottawa take annual leave, we have to hire temporary staff there as well. Thank you.

The message that’s gone out is one from our office at the Executive because we held the agreements with the groups and have identified them in past discussions. The groups had to sign off and sign contribution agreements. The summit process was one that was initially made up of the leadership. The Member is correct that it did get tied into hiring of a lot of additional... Well, I don’t know if it was a lot, but it was considered to take out and it evolved into more of, for no better words, a bureaucratic process between consultants and lawyers and groups with some mixing of political...

Mr. Chairman, the Member has recalled, in fact, a significant piece of work we are working on. I am hopefully in the near future able to bring it back to Cabinet and then go to Members with the work that we have done in that area to update it. Thank you.

We do have multi-year funding processes in place. Some organizations, again non-government organizations, as we’ve heard from the Minister of Health and Social Services are doing their review of how they would continue with that funding process. Clearly we do have multi-year funding in place.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my left is Gabriela Sparling, deputy minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations, and to my right is Richard Robertson, director of policy, planning and communications. Thank you.

That is miscellaneous equipment; for example, copiers. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. No, we don’t believe it will be enough and we will have to come forward in a supplementary appropriation manner to request additional funding once we know how many groups would like to go through the format as I was speaking to Mr. Menicoche. So we will expect we will have to come forward to this Assembly for additional funds. Thank you.

As I said, we will provide the list of Metis locals that are receiving funding and those that are in the process of renewing their societies’ obligations. We’ll get that information. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I’m here to present the 2011-2012 main estimates for the Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations. The core business of the department is guided by the 16th Legislative Assembly’s goal of a strong and independent North built on partnerships.

The department’s main estimates propose total operating expenses of $7.619 million for the coming year which is a decrease of 6.9 percent, or $561,000, from the 2010-2011 main estimates.

This decrease is attributed to an $864,000 sunset of the resources allocated for the development of a common vision and...

Mr. Chairman, I think the Member, if he looks at Hansard tomorrow, will see I did not use the word full support. I talked about support of this Assembly. Now, yes, as is laid out clearly in policy, any Minister to sign an agreement with any government whether it is a provincial, federal, needs approval of Cabinet. We followed that process, but not without talking to Members of the Legislative Assembly. That wasn’t in this forum, but no one in this Assembly can say they were not informed of the process. Thank you.