Foreign Affairs Committee on Feb. 26th, 2013

Evidence of meeting #67 for Foreign Affairs and International Development in the 41st Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was north.

A recording is available from Parliament.

On the agenda

Canada's Arctic Foreign Policy

MPs speaking

Also speaking

Ed Zebedee Director, Protection Services, Government of Nunavut

Ted McDorman Faculty of Law, University of Victoria, As an Individual

William MacKay Director, Intergovernmental Relations, Government of Nunavut

Andy Bevan Acting Deputy Minister, Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations, Government of the Northwest Territories

Terry Hayden Acting Deputy Minister, Economic Development, Government of Yukon

12:55 p.m.

Acting Deputy Minister, Department of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations, Government of the Northwest Territories

Andy Bevan

Yes, thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, member Grewal.

Again, I would echo my colleague's perspective in the sense that things are still very early, for sure, but from our perspective in the GNWT we are very encouraged by the minister's openness to communicate regularly. In fact, we're having some discussions as we speak about the potential for some of the Arctic Council meetings, working group or otherwise, to be held in the north, and we feel that's a very important innovation. So the minister's openness to a continued dialogue is something that the GNWT really appreciates. But for us to articulate the particular benefits today, I think we'd probably be getting ahead of ourselves. That said, we're really encouraged broadly by the minister's approach to engaging the territories during the chairpersonship.

Thank you.

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

Thank you.

We'll finish with Mr. Hayden, who will have the last comment today.

12:55 p.m.

Acting Deputy Minister, Economic Development, Government of Yukon

Terry Hayden

Again, I would just reiterate that we can't stress enough how important it is to allow the first nations and other citizens of the north as well as the various stakeholders to be able to bring their various views and opinions forward and actively engage in the process and feel engaged in it.

Thank you.

12:55 p.m.

Conservative

The Chair Conservative Dean Allison

To all our guests here today, those by video conference as well as here in the room, thank you very much for taking the time to be here today and contribute to our study.

Once again, thank you very much

With that, the meeting is adjourned.