Good morning, and welcome to Yellowknife.
Members of Parliament, chair of the committee, committee members, and staff, I am Floyd Roland, Premier of the Northwest Territories and Minister of Aboriginal Affairs and Intergovernmental Relations.
I would like to welcome you all here to the north, and I want to thank you for venturing outside of the nation's capital to speak to northerners on our turf. We do appreciate your attending here today, and we hope the stories you take home with you will shape your thinking about our home, our people, and our land.
You've asked three departments of the Government of the Northwest Territories to speak to the committee today about the barriers and solutions to northern economic development.
I am pleased that my colleague, the Honourable Michael Miltenberger, Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, and Mr. Peter Vician, Deputy Minister, Industry, Tourism and Investment, have joined me today to contribute to this important subject area.
I believe it's fair to say that Canadians, and in fact the international community, have realized the importance and significance of the north and our tremendous economic potential, our vast landscape, our breathtakingly beautiful geography, our cultural diversity, and our unique political system.
I am also reasonably certain that your briefs included a mention of the NWT's comparatively high cost of living, the persistent socio-economic gaps between aboriginal and non-aboriginal northerners and between those living in urban versus rural and remote communities, and the infrastructure deficit we experience in the vast territory we call home.
You'll know we have both enormous opportunity and enormous challenge. In order for us to ensure that we do not squander the opportunities, our governments will need to do a lot better at working together towards a comprehensive plan for the NWT, one that is developed by northerners and supported by Canada, a big picture plan that guides our various initiatives and policies, particularly around land management, the creation of national parks and conservation areas, and the negotiation of government systems through land, resources, and self-government agreements.
Such a comprehensive plan—which, I put to you, does not currently exist—is absolutely necessary to create the right conditions for northerners as well as Canadians from coast to coast to coast to benefit from economic development north of 60.
A key element of such a comprehensive plan is the finalization and full implementation of land resources and self-government agreements. The negotiation and implementation of aboriginal rights agreements in all of the NWT's regions are absolutely necessary steps in ensuring aboriginal people have the tools to fully participate in the NWT and Canadian economies.
Equally important is that all parties to these negotiations are guided by the principle of negotiating workable, affordable, effective structures of government at the community and regional levels and supporting, not duplicating, existing regulatory land and resource management regimes.
The NWT currently has three settled land claims agreements, Inuvialuit, Gwich'in, Sahtu; one land claim and self-government agreement, the Tlicho; and one treaty entitlement agreement, Salt River.
We still have a way to go. There are lands, resources, and self-government negotiations taking place in all regions of the NWT. There are also transboundary negotiations with the Na-Cho Nyak Dun of the Yukon and the Manitoba and Saskatchewan Denesuline, who have asserted rights north of 60.
The Government of the Northwest Territories is an active party to all these negotiations, as we support the settlement of all outstanding aboriginal rights in the NWT. We do so because we want to be a part of rectifying historic wrongs and because we know from experience that those who have settled land claims in the NWT have the tools necessary to fully participate in large-scale economic development initiatives.
It is no coincidence that those regions with settled land claims have fully supported the proposed Mackenzie gas project, largely because they have a direct stake as part owners of the project and benefit directly from its success.
The need to have a stake in decisions that affect us holds true for northerners generally. We want nothing less than what most Canadians already have. We want to make the decisions over NWT land and resource management and ensure we benefit from the development.
We must continue to work together with the federal government and with aboriginal governments to achieve the long-overdue devolution of legislative authority over land and resources from Ottawa to the north. Without this authority, we will have little power to influence or control NWT land management decisions to ensure that more of the benefits from resource development accrue to NWT residents.
There is no reason that we are trusted to run our health care system, our education systems, our transportation systems, and all the other devolved jurisdictions we have, but not to have jurisdiction over one area that could bring our governments revenue to support these programs and more.
Devolution creates a stable climate for industry and investment by providing clarity around land ownership, land management, and who needs to be consulted when and by whom, but devolution takes political will, the will to give northerners a fair share of the resource revenues made from their land. I am confident that the settlement of land claims and the agreement on devolution will bring about the required certainty regarding NWT lands, resources, and governance and create the right conditions for the NWT's economy to be developed in such a way as to create jobs and business opportunities for Canadians, aboriginal and non-aboriginal, living north and south of 60.
The settlement of land, resources, and self-government agreements takes time. It takes time because so much is at stake and because the issues on the table are complex and numerous. If we are not careful now, at the design stage, we may create a governance regime in the NWT that lacks the capacity to serve its citizens and to create the necessary conditions to support balanced and sustainable economic development. It is now, before the ink is dry, that we need to ask ourselves a number of questions: are we creating the right conditions for mutually respectful and productive government-to-government relations between public and aboriginal governments? Do aboriginal governments have the capacity to fully implement their self-government agreements? Who pays for self-government? Will the NWT's government system be more streamlined, or crippled by too much government?
I respectfully put it to you that we have not worked hard enough to find answers to these questions. For example, the issues of self-government financing and of capacity-building in emerging aboriginal governments have not been resolved. Our government has raised these issues countless times with various federal departments, but there is little indication that there is a willingness to find solutions.
The fix, gentlemen, is not punting these important issues or leaving them to the Government of the Northwest Territories and NWT and aboriginal governments to sort out long after agreements have been signed.
The successful conclusion of aboriginal rights agreements, devolution agreements, and resource revenue-sharing agreements is required for the NWT to reach its full economic potential. What is needed is a recognition and acceptance by Canada of its traditional policy objectives of effective public government and recognition of aboriginal rights in the NWT. How we give meaning to these policy objectives should be described in a comprehensive plan for the NWT, one developed here in the NWT and supported by the Government of Canada. We invite Canada to assist us in striving toward our goal: a prosperous north that embraces aboriginal rights, puts northerners in charge of decisions that affect them, and places the NWT in its rightful place in Confederation.
Thank you very much.