Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in 1977 -- imagine that, way back -- the Berger Inquiry, the Commission investigated the Mackenzie Valley pipeline, and one of its recommendations at the end was to pause 10 years on the construction to give land claims a chance to settle. Mr. Speaker, it seemed to be he was the only one with the forethought to come up with a closure date on those particular initiatives and if you don't put a closure date, people will use the time and keep going. My question specifically for the Premier would be this, Mr. Speaker: Now that we're knocking on the door of the 50-year anniversary of that vision saying we'll close these things off maybe in 10 years, what incentives or carrot sticks are being offered to help stop these open negotiations and bring them to a conclusion? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I think the question is what sort of carrots are we offering Indigenous governments to conclude their land claim negotiations? I would say that we are having -- we are working towards finding common ground that may not have been common in the past. When there was two parties or, well, three parties negotiating in this case, and we want to make some changes going forward, we want to see progress going forward, we need to look at what has been worked on for the past 20 or 30 years. And actually as the Member was asking, I was just going over some of the tables and looking at some of those ways to move things forward. So, Mr. Speaker, there is a negotiation framework. There's a mandate in a number of tables. Things are moving forward under that mandate. And there's areas perhaps where we need to re-look at those mandates, and that's what I am doing right now. And I recently had meetings with the Dehcho grand chief and their negotiating team. I am meeting with the -- you know, their other representatives from the Dehcho tomorrow. We have regular meetings with the NWT Metis Nation. So there's lots going on to try and advance these. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The public often sees these without deadlines more akin to career files or economic development. I guess that brings us to the point which is what can the government do? They could offer -- they could incentivize it with money. They could offer better deals. What can the Premier do within his purview to close these open-ended negotiations? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So there are two other parties involved in all of these negotiations. There's the Indigenous government, who we are negotiating with, and there's the Government of Canada. So we're doing our part to ensure that we have mandates that are modern, that reflect the challenges of today, the aspirations of the Indigenous peoples who we're negotiating with, and we're going to continue to refine those and move forward as we can.
I will give one example of a date, and I know that the Minister of Crown Indigenous Relations has put a date of June of this year for advancement of the Dehcho final agreement to get to the AIP. I think -- I am not sure if we're going to hit a full AIP by that point, but there's an example where there is a date and we want to do what we can to meet that date and then quickly advance things after that. And what I've seen in these negotiations, when there is a -- when negotiators at the table do have the opportunity to give a little on certain things, perhaps because we've changed the mandate at the Cabinet table, then that spurs progress at that table. And so by giving a little, we can get a little and move forward that way. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the interim or what more feels like the permanent land withdrawal because of this process, is frustrating to Northerners. Mr. Speaker, what's stopping this government under the powers and authority under the Premier to make a financial agreement carrot to work towards closing this? Because it is slowing the North's progress down. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So there's a lot to land claim negotiations, self-government negotiations. As I said, there's three parties, and so there are things to consider when making offers. Previously, Canada and the GNWT would make joint offers where land and money were combined. Canada has changed their approach, and so we're actually waiting for some clarification from Canada on how that's going to work going forward, as well as some other areas where there's been policy changes over the past number of years where there's a lack of clarity. So there's a number of different issues here, and we are doing what we can within our authority, myself as Premier and our Cabinet, to advance these files as quickly as we can. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Premier. Oral questions. Member from Great Slave.
