Floyd Roland

Mr. Speaker, the simple fact is the issue of power generation across the Northwest Territories has been a major issue for as long as I can remember as a Member of the Legislative Assembly, and I started back in the 13th Assembly. There have been a number of initiatives that were undertaken, presented to governments of the past, to take an initiative to try to change some of the way we did our work and delivery of energy across the North, but there was not the will to make that change. This Assembly is now going to be presented with an opportunity. Do we have the will to make the necessary...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Member for her question and the event that she organized and the hand-off of the Christmas present, which is work by the organizations around the Anti-Poverty Strategy. When this issue first came up prior to Christmas, I became aware of what was being done and at that time asked the folks in the Department of Executive to start to begin to look at how we could try to address this issue. Now, with this package, and as I’ve talked with my Cabinet colleagues, we’re going to officially put it in the system with this information.

As we were at the presentation...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Power Corporation itself is established under our legislation, the Government of the Northwest Territories. So through any initiative, any change of that nature would have to be the work of this level of government. The NTPC board, NTPC structure is all put into place. They have not had discussions in this area. They will be getting the work of the review that was done specifically on the Power Corp and be working through that scenario. They go on with the business established under our legislation. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I believe the approach that we have undertaken with regional leaders is to have them work with us presenting a northern package on resource revenue sharing. Right now, Mr. Speaker, the land claims that have been settled have a portion of the resource revenue going back to those claim organizations, but it is very small compared to what the potential is. We see this as an opportunity to get some of those dollars to stay in the North so we can do the reinvestments in projects we believe are necessary for themselves. I am hoping that through our work with regional leaders, we will be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This area the question that the Minister of Justice has put forward on our behalf is one that addresses the issue of authority in the Northwest Territories. When you have your own Members of the Legislative Assembly questioning your authority under the NWT Act, we clearly need to address the issue. We believe we have the authority. This is a confirmation. There are too many times in the history of our Government of the Northwest Territories when it comes to issues around what and how we affect aboriginal peoples in the programs we deliver. From time to time it has come...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The area of resource revenues in the Northwest Territories has been ongoing for over a couple of decades now. At one point, I believe before it became resource revenues, it was called a Northern Accord of one nature. So it is something that we continue to work on. In fact, at the regional leaders’ table, we have addressed it a number of ways. For example, we now had meetings with almost every regional group and government around that, where the old discussions were left at, at the 15th Assembly, with the federal government wanting to re-engage. We are going to see how...

Sorry, Mr. Speaker. I apologize for that. In the shuffling of my papers I didn’t catch the last part of the Member’s question. So if I could have that repeated. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, any changes that we would make would have to include the legislative initiative and changes that we would have to bring forward. That process is well established. We would have to follow through that and go forward. In fact, Mr. Speaker, when the ATCO proposal came out, I was asked by aboriginal leadership, why not aboriginal corporations get involved in this, that day one they showed interest in becoming a partner or parts of the Power Corporation. At that time I said we are not interested in taking parts of the Power Corporation, but we are interested in having discussions...

There are templates across the country that are similar when you look at our size. The one closest to us, of course, is Nunavut. As the Member pointed out in her Member’s statement, when division occurred, we took a stance. At the time, the government-of-the-day took a stance where it was focused on the business entity, as arm’s length as possible. The Nunavut government has taken a different approach and we’d have to look at that model to see if it’s worked in that location. I know they’ve been pressed with their issues around the cost of energy as well. But through this energy rate review...

Mr. Speaker, of course everyone is familiar with the ATCO proposal that we received that we have had some very high level permanent discussions to see if, in fact, it was a starting position or not. That is the one that is sitting there right now. There hasn’t been a whole lot of work done on that piece. The last set of discussions Mr. Miltenberger was involved with was around the interest that a potential partner might have in expanding our hydro system here in the Northwest Territories. There have not been active discussions on the actual partnership. There have been discussions about what...