Joe Handley

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The answer is yes, I have discussed this with my northern counterparts and with some of the provincial Premiers, and the Member is correct that this is a national program. It would mean having to make changes not just in the northern zone, but in what we call the intermediate zone, as well. Mr. Speaker, in looking at this with the Premiers from the Yukon and Nunavut, it was our decision to put this one on the back burner until we had made more progress through the expert panel on our territorial financing formula and also on resource revenue sharing. Mr. Speaker, the...

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I think Members have raised some good points here. There are some requests for information that neither the client department or Public Works have tonight. We can go on and on about why things didn’t happen or why we didn’t do this or that, or we could do a vote and make another decision that a lot of people feel is foolish or wrong. With that, Mr. Chairman, I think it’s necessary to get more information. ECE doesn’t know how much space they would need if they were going to build a new building. We need that kind of information. So, Mr. Chairman, with that, I move...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, this is still on the radar screen. It’s still something we want to consider. But we need to determine what our fiscal situation will be as a government first through the financing formula and also through resource revenue sharing. Mr. Speaker, other jurisdictions, and we have looked across North America, in fact, I have, what other jurisdictions are doing to reduce the cost of living. Some Members have mentioned to me that in Alaska, for example, there is no Alaska income tax. There’s federal income tax, but no Alaska income tax, and that’s true in some other...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d also like to recognize two constituents, James and Sheila Anderson from Weledeh, who are hosting…

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one of the AFS exchange students, Ms. Phee Sunantarod. Thank you.

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Mr. Speaker, certainly our vision, from our government’s perspective or from northerners’ perspective, our vision of the North has not changed because the federal government changed. It is still the same vision. So when you look at the basic principles, those principles have not changed. We look at some of the main goals, whether it is on governance, protecting the environment or establishing a strong foundation for economic development, so those are the same.

Mr. Speaker, all of that information has been provided to the federal Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. It is now...

Mr. Speaker, there are a couple of things that are happening simultaneously. First of all, the majority of aboriginal leaders agree with what the Member has said. They want to move forward. The Aboriginal Summit has created what they call a working committee. On their side, it is three representatives from the summit. On our side, it is three representatives from our Cabinet: myself, the Minister of Finance and the Minister of ITI. We have had a phone meeting. We have made a commitment that, as soon as we got the second expert panel report, we would brief them. We will try to go...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, there has been progress. In fact, substantial progress has been made in the last couple of months. With regard to resource revenues, royalties, as the Member referred, we did receive the report of the council federation expert panel. It was made available on April 6th. It was a report that was very favourable in terms of how the three territorial governments should be treated on resource revenues.

Mr. Speaker, this morning, the federal Minister of Finance made available the federal government’s expert panel report. So we now have that report. Mr. Speaker, I...

…a principle fully embraced by all Canadian Premiers.

Mr. Speaker, all Members of this Legislative Assembly have an important job to do in keeping the priorities of the Northwest Territories on the radar screen of the federal government. In April of 2005, we joined with aboriginal and business leaders to go to Ottawa to explain our case to federal leaders. I am hopeful we can undertake a similar initiative in the fall to meet with the new federal Ministers and other representatives in Ottawa to explain the challenges and opportunities that exist in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just wanted to say that the government supports this motion. We support the principle of it and we won’t be voting on it today because it is a recommendation to government.

Mr. Speaker, support to our artists is something that we should be doing. In fact, our deputies have been working on an art enhancement policy and they will continue to work on that and would be happy to work with the Members on how we can make that an even better policy.

Mr. Speaker, art, in our view, isn’t something that should be left after you have done everything else and you have invested all...

Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct; the $40 million was a down payment. The government-of-the-day agreed to provide $40 million to each territory to be able to deal with issues that were of greatest urgency in each territory. That is why we allocated to the community governments to allow them to determine their first priorities.

It has always been felt that resource revenue sharing and fixing the formula were a key piece of any northern vision. That is the piece that we have been focussed on recently with the two expert panel reports, the most recent of which was released today. Fixing the...