Floyd Roland

I will provide a note to Members about both the special events funding. It’s $75,000 a year; $5,000 per application for each regional aboriginal government organization to help offset costs for holding special events such as general assemblies or special assemblies and celebrations that mark milestone anniversaries of settled agreements, for example.

Also part of that fund is $1,000 in support to community-based aboriginal organizations and that’s band councils, Metis locals, community corporations, Native Women’s Association, to help celebrate National Aboriginal Day. We have a list of how...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. On the second question first, being the title of the position of Premier versus Government Leader. It is a symbolic one, the most recent letter I received from the Prime Minister recognized the position as Premier and we say that is a significant move, just on that piece alone. Further to that, if we were to request a change, that would still require the NWT Act to be opened up and we think there is, as we go forward and talk about self-governments, talk about the changing relationship and the changing nature of the Northwest Territories, there will be a time when a...

Mr. Speaker, the process for seeking or sole-sourcing, again, depending on the initiatives that are there and, again, all of the requirements to fit into either sole-source or negotiated contracts all have limits that would apply before there’s direct involvement from a deputy minister level or coming to the Cabinet or FMB table. So there are a number of processes that would be involved, whether it is specifically an initiative from a department and a Minister right on through the whole system. So we have processes in place and those are used as we seek to get the work done of government...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, the implementation process is one where once an agreement is signed, then each party then establishes or puts their folks on the implementation committee. From the information I have, there are three meetings a year set out and those are usually established in the agreement initially; how often they would meet and so on. So there are three meetings per year and outstanding issues are addressed through that if there are issues that come forward. They could be specifically identified, for example, if the area of responsibility lies within the federal...

Mr. Chairman, that is one of the areas that would find itself under the eligible criteria, organizational development costs, for example, in governance costs. So that would help in that management side of it. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the Member. He is consistent on this issue. The Member is right; on an annual basis, core funding is provided to Metis organizations that are eligible for $13,235 and the total amount we have set aside is in the neighbourhood of $225,000. What Metis organizations need to do is to qualify for that by having their registries in good standing. That’s the only requirement we have. We’ve been working with the NWT Metis in this area. We’ve had discussions. It hasn’t progressed at this point, but we’ve had discussions that they may be interested in taking over the...

It sounds like an easy question to ask, but it is a rather loaded one when you look at the complexities and the environment we work at here in the Northwest Territories. Previous Governments of the Northwest Territories have worked with the federal government and Indian and Northern Affairs and Development Canada to come up with a position that… No one has a veto, but we fully recognize, as the Government of the Northwest Territories, we need to work in partnership with our aboriginal groups in the North to come up with the best plan for ourselves. That is ourselves as the North. Thank you.

At times it can be frustrating in trying to move things along, but in our style of working with our community governments and aboriginal leadership we have to work through a process. Hopefully, on the Lutselk'e project, for example, the mini-hydro there, we began to move that ahead at a faster pace. Whati is another area where we’re working on run-of-the-river technology. Some of the decisions that have to be made though are should we be looking at a bigger expansion or leave it to the community size when it comes to the hydro pieces. Biomass, when we look at replacement of diesel generators...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The process we’d be involved in directly from there is getting the information from the appropriate departments, for example. That is, again, when we set up our percentages we would like to be open to development, we’d be working with ITI, for example, or with Environment and Natural Resources, as well, to look at the overall potential. We use things like the mirror process to look at what potential is in the area. We look at the oil and gas, the minerals, all of that to see what the potential may be. Now, it’s very difficult to come up with a number because, again...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. There is an agreement to share these and an equal amount from the federal government. The reason it is as it is, is because we are just starting to re-engage, and if we do get to an agreement to fully engage on this, we would be coming forward with an offset, and if it were to kick in quicker than we think right now, we would come through, for example, a supplementary process and identify the matching dollars to the federal government. Thank you.