Floyd Roland

Mr. Speaker, of course we are hopeful that a satisfactory approach can be resolved here with the Tuk community and the wind turbine situation. Of course, if that is not able to proceed, we would go back to the Ministers of the Energy Coordinating Committee and relook at that and evaluate where we can do that and reallocate funds to communities that are willing and where we have the studies to show that wind is consistent enough for wind power. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As we go through our process of budgeting and business plan development throughout departments and we go through a process of receiving feedback, we try to address the concerns that come up on areas of shortfall or requests for change in that planning, and we’d be prepared to do the same if Members and committees were to recommend some changes or development of new initiatives within our processes. The area of the ombudsman has not been a part of Executive’s business plan. I know it’s come up in discussion with a number of departments but, again, we haven’t had a formal...

In fact, through this process we have looked closely at the Yukon agreement and that process, and have ensured and worked at the table with the aboriginal governments and representatives on ensuring that this process we’re involved with to a much greater extent involves aboriginal governments in the future of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The letter has been received and we felt we were going to address that through our regional leaders meetings and some side meetings that we’d have there. With the recent release that has come out, we will put it instead in a formal response back to the president of the Gwich’in Tribal Council.

The draft AIP that’s been sent out to the aboriginal governments and organizations for their input has been done because the mandates of the chief negotiators have breached. It is up to the governments to decide what the next steps are and we’re in that process of making those decisions, waiting for the input of the aboriginal organizations and governments for their response to the chief negotiators’ letters. We’ll have to decide what the process is going forward from there, and when it comes to some of the issues that I believe are outstanding are ones that I believe would be identified...

The process that we’ve gone down, in fact, on the basis of the AIP started off fundamentally in 2001, has worked through, in fact, in the 15th Assembly, four groups signed on with the government-of-the-day to forward that draft on to Canada and the Sahtu was included in that signing at that time. We, in the 16th Assembly, had halted the process to start the regional leaders table to try to build a more common approach, and when the re-engagement happened with the federal government, there was a number of technical sessions and negotiations that were involved at the regional level process and...

Mr. Speaker, at the chance of being chastised by Members for going ahead without putting the plan before them and coming up with a funding source, that would be difficult. My preference is to wait for committees to respond and give us suggestions on our business plan process and we can go forward on that basis. Thank you.

We do, indeed, want to receive feedback from the constituents of the Northwest Territories on our program delivery, whether it be medical travel, student financial assistance, transportation, licensing and so on. There are so many areas we are involved in that, it is difficult to keep the pulse on all of it all the time. That’s why it’s important that we look at how we deliver that program or the many programs we’re involved with, and that is why, through our Strategic Initiative committee Refocusing Government, we’ve started a program so far, as well as Public Works and the Minister of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That does get into the AIP itself. We’re waiting for the response from the chief negotiators’ letter that went to the aboriginal governments and their representatives to provide a response that would see them continue in those discussions. As I was saying earlier, there is a process in that agreement that has bilaterals, and that subject matter would be discussed through those processes.

The process, the questions that were raised in there at one time or another have been discussed and some of these are the fact that they will fall into the bilateral discussions we will have government to government between the GNWT and aboriginal governments. So that’s the process that it would fall under and it would be addressed through that manner. Thank you.