Joe Handley

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has always been very clear, as has Minister Prentice, that we have to work together on this thing. So when he says something, I take him at his word.

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has already moved this agenda ahead through Minister Prentice. As I said, Harvie Andre has been appointed as the new federal negotiator. They know that resource revenue sharing and devolution are together. That is moving ahead. As I said earlier, Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has already asked Minister Flaherty, Minister of Finance, to bring forward a proposal on financing in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this is no longer an option for us, as I said in my sessional statement. The situation we have is not sustainable. Mr. Speaker, Mr. Prentice and Mr. Harper have made pretty firm commitments to us on what they think is the element of a good deal. We have told them what we expect to be done. We are entering negotiations with them. I want to work towards an agreement-in-principle within the next few months.

Mr. Speaker, quite frankly, I expect that there is going to be a federal election coming up. We don’t have a lot of levers here, but I can tell you, Mr...

Mr. Speaker, I have not seen a written mandate for Mr. Andre but, in my discussions with him, it is clear that he understands our point when we link both resource revenue sharing and devolution. Mr. Speaker, he understands that relationship. Mr. Speaker, there is no indication that he has the authority to overrule the federal Finance Minister who has the ultimate authority in the federal Cabinet on finance issues, but he can certainly carry very strong messages back to Minister Prentice and then onto Mr. Flaherty. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the federal government have made it clear that they will be proceeding on devolution and resource revenue sharing discussions, that in December Minister Flaherty will be meeting. So, Mr. Speaker, I expect clearly that we will have the answers to this and the process in place this fall before the end of the calendar year. Mr. Speaker, I expect to see as part of the 2007-08 budget some relief for the Northwest Territories on both the financing formula and on resource revenue sharing. Mr. Speaker, I think that is as much detail as we can provide at this time. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, certainly lowering the flag would be an option. I think that one has been used already.

Mr. Speaker, I think the main option is we have to stay the course. There is a federal election coming soon, probably within the life of our government, and I think we get a very clear message that this is the main issue for us that the current situation is not sustainable. Mr. Speaker, I certainly welcome any advice from any Members if there are other things we can do, whether it’s turn the flag upside down or whatever it may be. My approach is that the federal government made a commitment to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are two main actions which we are taking. As the Member knows, the Prime Minister has committed that we should be the primary beneficiaries and, following that, there has been the two reports on fiscal imbalance; both of them sided with our government. Following that, Minister Flaherty has indicated that he’s meeting with the Finance Ministers in December and at that time it is expected that he will be putting forward a proposal on territorial formula financing. So, Mr. Speaker, that will be the first action on that front.

Mr. Speaker, the other one has to do...

Mr. Speaker, yes, in the last year and a half we have had regular meetings with myself and the regional leaders, the grand chiefs, the presidents and so on. Mr. Speaker, the last meeting we had was, I believe, in about June or so. At that meeting, the leaders agreed that they wanted to meet to decide who their membership was before we would get together again, and that meeting has been postponed a couple of times and I understand it’s now going to be held in November. So following that, I will have another meeting with the regional leaders as a team if they choose to do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As Mrs. Groenewegen has said, those were speculation. I was having a discussion with the reporter by telephone and he was asking me questions, I was speculating on answers, Mr. Speaker. So they were very much, as I say, speculation. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, I will provide the evidence that I have in terms of the questions that we have put forward, the commitments made by the federal government and I will provide that to all of the Members. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to recognize Chief Peter Liske and former chief, Rick Edjericon, from the Yellowknives Dene First Nation and also I see one of my constituents, Aggie Brockman, here as well and other constituents. Thank you.

---Applause