Joe Handley

Madam Chairperson, I don’t have a problem with sharing with MLAs, but I want to check with the other two territorial Premiers as well, to make sure that they are fine with that. Thank you.

Madam Chairperson, I didn’t talk to him specifically about setting up a trust fund or a heritage fund, but I did raise, as part of our discussions on a northern strategy, the need for consideration of resource revenue sharing and the need for us to begin to negotiate an interim process fairly quickly. I might also say that I also emphasised that we don’t want to get some of these kinds of exercises like negotiating in terms of resource revenue sharing arrangement tied up in some long, drawn-out strategy development process. I made that point to the Prime Minister: let’s not slow down some...

Madam Chairperson, I didn’t have time on this trip to meet with them. The schedule was full from when I arrived to the hour I left. I did have a conversation with our staff person in Ottawa and asked her to set up meetings for when I am next in Ottawa. Right now I believe I’m in Ottawa on November 26th or 29th for other things. I do intend to meet with Mr. Layton and Mr. Harper at that time. Thank you.

Mr. Chairman, with regard to supps and special warrants, we do deal with them very seriously and there are criteria we want to follow. I don’t think any of us would have any difficulty with taking a look at the Financial Administration Act and seeing how we can make the whole system work better. I want to say though on special warrants, if we put something in that bound the hands of the government too much then we might find ourselves at some point in the future where we just didn’t have the money to spend, because of having to go through some process. You could have a school burn down...

Mr. Speaker, those kinds of gas turbines are new technology. There are warranties on them, but when the Power Corporation looks at new ways of saving energy costs, it sometimes has to take some risk. The turbines that are provided in Inuvik are the same ones that I saw at one time myself in a recreation facility at one of the community colleges in Alberta. There was, by the corporation, as much due diligence on making sure that they were buying something that was reasonably sure. The company that provided them still does business there and does the service work that is essential. There...

Some aboriginal groups are frustrated with talk on devolution because they are not focused on devolution, they are focused on settling their aboriginal claim or process. Some aboriginal groups, on the other hand, are frustrated because they already have claims and we’re not moving the next step. They feel they’re losing economic opportunities and so on. So my view is that we need to continue to negotiate devolution, but do it in a way that it's not going to interfere or prejudice negatively anything with those groups who don’t yet have settled their aboriginal rights; so the Akaitcho people...

Yes, Mr. Speaker, it’s our intention to have that sort of arrangement set up. I don’t know the structure of it, but we will do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. That issue certainly came up of getting it tangled up in the bureaucracy and, in fact, the Prime Minister himself referred to it as we don’t want to get into bureaucratic morass, is what he had called it. So he’s very aware of not letting this thing start to spin out of control here. Do we trust him? Do we work with him? I say yes, we haven’t got a lot of choice. Has he delivered? I guess I’d differ with you if you say we haven’t seen anything concrete because I tell you in the last month, it’s been a lot of hard work, a lot of slugging from our side, but I think...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am certainly willing and, in fact, eager to meet with the people in the Sahtu to talk about the implementation plan which was just recently negotiated. I did want to go there a while ago, but the weather prevented it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Madam Chair, I think I will deal with the questions in the reverse order. First of all, in terms of respecting the relationship that aboriginal governments have with Ottawa, we will fully respect that relationship and have no difficulty at all with it. We are not trying to say to Ottawa we are the government that you should deal with and then we will deal with the aboriginal governments at all. In fact, while I was in Ottawa, most of the Akaitcho and the Tlicho were well represented in Ottawa, holding their own meetings. I think that is healthy and it was good. The one thing that I would...