Floyd Roland

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Member has asked a number of questions in that one item. There was a fair bit of information there and I’ll have to get back to the Member once I have a chance to review the Hansard as to all the details he’s requested in that question. Thank you.

Again, without having the background information what other agencies and what some of our departments are involved in, supports in this area, it’s hard for me to commit to establishing a position. We would have to go through our business plan process. We would have to see what this position would be doing and advocating for and what would be required. Whereas, right now, we do have some supports through our departments, Education, Culture and Employment being one of those. Again, I would have to get that information and provide that to the Member and decide where we would go with something...

A practice that we’ve had as this Assembly, and because I’m familiar with previous exercises, as well, whenever we go through our business planning process we do look at the level of services and how we carry out business across government, whether it is in growth or when we tighten our belts, so to speak. So getting direction and myself setting direction for this Assembly I would, again, go back to the Members and in line with this questioning the work we’re doing already on program service delivery in our communities is to sit down with Members to look at that information to see if we would...

There’s a number of initiatives that we’ve undertaken during the 16th Assembly when it comes to looking at program delivery or the way we deliver our programs in our communities across the North. Looking at that scenario and having to come back to Members to see if we will change the way we do our delivery could have an impact on the level of delivery and the level of services in our community. So that work is ongoing now, as a Legislative Assembly, along with the cost of living scenario where we’re looking at a number of fronts, looking at what we need to do differently as a government as...

Mr. Speaker, number one, there has not been an initiative specifically on minerals, oil and gas. The devolution and resource revenue sharing has been a package put together, and at some point we’ll have to discuss if we even keep those two packages together. But this will take a discussion at the regional leaders table, because as has been shown in the past, without the support of regional leaders, the federal government isn’t too keen on moving forward, either without ourselves as the GNWT at the table or without regional leaders at the table. So the partnership approach is the best one and...

Mr. Speaker, indeed, the approach would be through the regional leaders table that we’ve established. Our next meeting will be later on during this month and the devolution and resource revenue sharing re-engagement with the federal government will be one of the items we’ll be having discussions on. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to take this opportunity to report on the results of last week’s meeting between federal, provincial and territorial Ministers of Aboriginal Affairs and leaders of the five national aboriginal organizations.

This meeting marks the renewal of a national process involving all levels of government and national aboriginal organizations to advance aboriginal issues. Aboriginal Affairs Ministers and the leaders of the national aboriginal organizations came together for the first time in more than four years to find ways of working together in an effort to address a...

Mr. Speaker, Members of the Assembly, I have waited over a year to say my piece. Now, there are a couple of roads I can take here to set the record straight for some of the information shared, some of the discussion that has taken place behind closed doors, some of the things that the people of the Northwest Territories do not see, how things are reported in the media. The grand kickoff of this by CBC is one thing. I could go down that path. Mr. Speaker, one of the things I have held onto is trying to maintain a level of approach that this institution does deserve.

Now, I know this whole...

As this work is being done about how we deliver our programs and services in our communities and in light of the question from the Member, I’d be happy to, once we pull this information together, sit down with Members and go through what options may be presented as to how we deliver those services, and that could have an impact to the levels of services and employment in communities. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d have to get more details to do a full response to the Member, which I will commit to doing, but I believe it was the 14th Assembly. And if we’re on the same path here, the 14th Assembly was doing some work in regard to federal decentralization of positions out of Ottawa to the North. Thank you.