Evidence of meeting #77 for Indigenous and Northern Affairs in the 42nd Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was agreements.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
Thank you, Madam Chair.
There are a couple of things. First of all, the devolution agreement and IBAs are two different monies.
12:35 p.m.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
So it's like comparing apples to oranges. The devolution agreement doesn't include all the communities, so there are a lot of communities that are still not signed on.
We've heard throughout our presentations today frustration with the process, frustration with implementation, and frustration dealing with the federal and territorial governments, and there were some good suggestions. I think your government does some of what I'm going to suggest.
I think it was the Gwich'in who suggested that there should be an oversight committee that monitors how the claims are funded and implemented. I think your government does some of that through bilateral discussions and talks on an annual basis, but would you agree that it needs to be done with both governments so that some of the challenges that the aboriginal governments are bringing forward here today could be dealt with?
12:40 p.m.
Premier, Government of the Northwest Territories
I think we have that in every instance, implementation committees where there are land claims settled. There exists such a committee, and if that doesn't work out, then there's access to arbitration. Perhaps the frustration is—
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
Almost every government that came forward today talked about their frustration. What do you do with it when it comes to you? Do you just settle it in the courts—arbitration? Where is the federal government in this? Are they in the mix? Is there a resolution?
12:40 p.m.
Premier, Government of the Northwest Territories
It involves the federal government, the territorial government, and the aboriginal government. If there's frustration, perhaps it's not at a high enough level. Typically it's one of our implementation directors who is on that implementation committee. Where there are differences, it goes to an arbitrator, the arbitrator makes a ruling, and then whoever put it forward is expected to live by the ruling. In some cases, nobody follows up on it because they don't agree with it.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
Michael McLeod Liberal Northwest Territories, NT
I have one last thing. Today we heard from a number of people who said that, even though there's a new government, nothing has changed. Would you agree with that statement? Are we still moving forward with the old direction of the previous government, the previous mindset, and the previous way of thinking, so that, really, nothing has changed on the ground? I hear it from almost every aboriginal government. They're expressing a lot of frustration.
12:40 p.m.
Premier, Government of the Northwest Territories
I wouldn't say that nothing has changed. As I said, I think the new government is doing something right. What we suffer from is that we don't know where the government is going, and for a lot of the areas that they've indicated they want to go to, I think it would help if we had some input and if we had a better understanding of where the government is intending to go.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
TJ Harvey Liberal Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
I have one quick question on something that arose from Mr. McLeod's questioning. He raised an interesting point, and I think you did touch on it. Let's say you have an indigenous nation, an indigenous community, and there's an overlapping issue between two communities, or there's another issue just with the boundary in general and the indigenous government agrees and settles that issue. Let's say a claim is settled, but there is still a portion of that community that doesn't feel the same way. Let's say there's a group of band mothers or hereditary chiefs who disagree with the issue. What's the formal process to address that? How can that best be addressed from a land claims standpoint?
12:40 p.m.
Premier, Government of the Northwest Territories
We have a number of examples of exactly where that's happened. We had two land claims settled, and in terms of the boundaries, I guess whoever surveyed the boundaries surveyed them inaccurately, or they had two different boundaries where one group feels they've been—
12:40 p.m.
Premier, Government of the Northwest Territories
—losing land, and others.... Both land claims have identical processes, and a committee gets together to resolve the issue, but the frustration is that it takes time.
12:40 p.m.
Liberal
TJ Harvey Liberal Tobique—Mactaquac, NB
Yes, and I guess I'm speaking specifically to when the two indigenous governments both agree on the issue of what the boundary is, but there's an underlying subset of people within one or both communities that disagrees with the leadership's decision on what the boundary should be. How do you address that?
12:40 p.m.
Premier, Government of the Northwest Territories
I guess we would probably hire a....
12:45 p.m.
Premier, Government of the Northwest Territories
Yes, a mediator or somebody to find out the issues and make recommendations to all the parties.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
Anybody else...?
That basically concludes our questioning time.
You've been very patient and generous with your time, Mr. Premier.
12:45 p.m.
Premier, Government of the Northwest Territories
Thank you very much.
Thank you for the opportunity to present to the committee. I think it was very insightful of your committee to come to the north. I don't know how many other places you have been to, but I think it's a very good way of accumulating knowledge and to find out at first hand from some of the people what all of the different issues are. There are a lot of issues in this case, so I appreciate it. Thank you very much for this opportunity.
12:45 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal MaryAnn Mihychuk
Thank you very much.
We're off to the friendship centre and then a tour of the community. We've all expressed the desire to see more of the north and indigenous communities. This is a committee that insisted that we reach out to the country and not sit in Ottawa in hearings. We appreciate your time.
We thank Yellowknife for their hospitality. We've enjoyed it very much. It's back to the bubble tonight.
The meeting is adjourned.