Michael Miltenberger

We’ll have one of our staff tied to the federal delegation paid for by the federal government and then we will have seven people: Premier Roland, myself, three MLAs and two staff. Thank you.

...in this circumstance? Do we go to an arbitration panel? That might be where we end up once this process goes through the steps and we consult and we talk to the aboriginal governments, the management boards, the stakeholders and see how we resolve this, because it is an area where there is an area of dispute and we need to come up with a way to resolve this. Thank you.

The Member has laid out the legal challenge that we have before us where you have two competing rights of first refusal and a licence holder and a licence that overlaps in the two regions. We have, as I’ve indicated, people in our department, we are working with the Department of Justice, we are working with the aboriginal governments, we’re going to talk to the stakeholders and the management boards about how do we deal with this situation that in all probability was not anticipated as these agreements were all signed off. Thank you.

Sandy Kalgutkar, deputy secretary of the FMB.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. “What if” questions are always difficult to answer. As I have indicated to the Member in this House and in writing September 10th, we have initiated and embarked upon a process with the aboriginal governments, the management boards, our own departments of the Government of the Northwest Territories and stakeholders, to try to resolve that issue; two competing rights of first refusal. In this case, the Gwich’in were given the right of first refusal first. It can only be offered once and then it’s no longer first refusal. So that’s the question we have to try to answer...

The process we’ve embarked on when this issue came to light is to consult with, of course, other departments, the aboriginal governments, the stakeholders, the management boards, to come up, over the coming months, with, hopefully, some resolution, advice and recommendations of how to remedy this issue in its entirety. Thank you.

No, Mr. Chairman. It is just a comment. I am very aware of the Member’s concern about this project. I will take his comment as offered. Thank you.

I have been involved in this issue since we first became aware of it. We’ve had discussions with the deputy and we’ve agreed on a course of action. The deputy, the most senior official in the Department of Natural Resources, is on this issue. We are getting the folks to the table and we are going to have this resolved hopefully through the process I have been talking about in this House today. Thank you.

It’s our intention as a government to honour all our obligations. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s our understanding that this program is now considered fully subscribed to and there won’t be any further availability for it to access or advance projects under this time-specific pot of money. Thank you.