Floyd Roland

No, Mr. Chairman. Once we get some confirmation on this specific area we’ll be able to do that. What I would, I guess, put out now is that we will pull the work that we have done in the areas that we’ve worked. For example, some of this was an additional communications person that we have within Executive now that helps us and then there’s the internal coordinating and working group. The other thing we’ve done, for example, is our radio broadcasting working with Aboriginal languages and talking about in general our government messaging throughout a number of departments.

Mr. Chairman, the decision to sign the agreement-in-principle was brought forward to Cabinet, was brought forward to Members of this Assembly. The facts were put on the table. Knowing that there would be concerns raised about going forward on an agreement-in-principle, knowing there was the potential for litigation, we took all precautions to ensure we did our work right. By signing that agreement, I believe in the work that has been done. I believe we have covered our bases. I believe in the issue of bringing Northerners the authority to make decisions over development and to benefit from...

Mr. Chairman, the process that we have gone down in the past, as I said a number of times quite a number of years ago, funding has been provided by both the federal government and the Government of the Northwest Territories in assisting groups from their earliest days of the Intergovernmental Forum, the Aboriginal Summit and to the regional Aboriginal leadership meetings that we have established through the 16th Legislative Assembly. As following the AIP signing, sent a letter out to all the regions, and copied their leadership, inviting them to contact us to set up a process where we can set...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We’ll provide a list of the Metis locals and the funding that’s been applied. One of the things we have is a condition on the funding that they need to be in good standing with the societies and we’re finding many of the groups have now started signing up and getting their paper back in order. There are 17 in total, but we’ll get the information out on paper.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Earlier we discussed this area of the Stabilization Fund. There is a call that goes out annually. There are areas that are reviewed and the applications that go into four general areas, applications, regions of the NWT, the type of support being requested including management costs or governance costs, organizational development costs, extraordinary general operations costs, whether ongoing personal costs are being requested, and whether the proposed projects had not received support or where the same or similar of those supported last year for the same NGO. That doesn...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think the Member is reverting back to his previous position as a negotiator on file, and, I mean, I respect the Member’s right to voice his concerns and advocate for the groups. I must say that we all represent communities and we’re elected to a public government and everyone in our communities. None of us are elected by one group specific, although, yes, there are significant people within our communities of one Aboriginal group or another.

Let’s go down the list, Mr. Chair. Norman Wells: two-thirds of that is under royalty regime. The groups that have signed the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Out of all of our employees, total of affirmative action is 41. So 62 percent of Executive, 43 percent is government overall. So we’re doing better in that area. Now, affirmative action includes Aboriginal, and P1, P2 is a traditional title that’s been given. Aboriginal people is 26 percent and indigenous non-Aboriginal, 36 percent. For total female in senior management we have 12 positions. We have three female, nine male. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. To my left is Penny Ballantyne, Cabinet secretary, and to my right is Dave Stewart with the Department of Executive.

Yes, Mr. Chairman. The 2011-2012 main estimates for the Department of Executive. The goals for the Department of Executive are centred on our role in ensuring effective coordination of government activities, supporting informed decision-making related to policies and programming, and coordinating implementation of strategic initiatives that advance priorities of the 16th Legislative Assembly.

The overall proposed budget for the department is $15.07 million for 2011-2012, which is an increase of $764,000, or 5.3 percent, from the 2010-2011 main estimates. The overall increase since the last...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The overall increase of the Department of Executive incorporates a number of the strategic initiatives that we’ve discussed through the life of this Assembly and also includes the compensation portion, the compensation benefits portion of the budget and that is why it goes over the target amount.

The areas of the NGOs and volunteers, we are doing work in those areas and we will be prepared to speak to them as we go through the detail of the budget.

On the agreement-in-principle, devolution, the comments I made in my opening remarks about funding and having to go forward...