Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  The only recommendation I would make is to just seek them out. I think one of the major responses of the NWT to my report was that the land use plans have to be complete. All the aboriginal communities I met talked the same way and said that land use planning is a key to this function.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I only spent two days in Nunavut. I had good briefings by the Nunavut government, by Nunavut Tunngavik Inc., by the mayor and a variety of other people in Iqaluit. From what I could see, I actually thought there was a desire to make the system work, and work reasonably well. Having said that, industry...for instance—and I won't give the specifics—one particular organization came to me with a project that they had in Nunavut.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  There is a list. I think I met with every land claim agreement signatory in one form or another and all of the unsettled areas, with the exception of the Dehcho. We tried to set up meetings with them in Fort Simpson; they simply didn't work out. That's why I made the comment that I met Grand Chief Antoine last night.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I made a comment earlier. All would publicly state to you and to me that they are working well and that we should not consider any improvements. Privately, I was advised otherwise by many of them, that they thought there should be some changes. So I guess that's where it stands.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Privately, some of them were, I think, in favour of the recommendations that I made. As I say, what's in this book was all discussed in Yellowknife at the round table, and all, with the exception of the Dehcho, were represented at the round table.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I think I made the point that I think it has hope in the south; hopefully we'll have hope in the north. It should be driven by the north. It shouldn't be in the south. The capacity to fill the job, which you commented on, I think, probably exists in the south, as well. I know that they had difficulty finding the right person.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  If you look at the three or four diamond mines that have established themselves, they've been through the process and obviously they were able to make it work well enough for them. It was a costly exercise, so I'm told by the mining companies, but so be it; that's part of the price you pay.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It was made clear to me right at the very beginning that this was the subject of other processes and I was not to be reviewing the Mackenzie Valley. So any discussion I had was very informal and not on the record. I'll leave that to the process that is occurring before the joint panel review and the National Energy Board.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It certainly came up, Mr. Bagnell. You're absolutely right, they're juxtaposed one to the other. Sometimes they're opposite and there's a conflict. I didn't comment on that because I was looking at only the regulatory system, but there's no question that the issue of at least the two sides of INAC came up in a lot of discussions that I heard about, just the way you've described it.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Duncan, I can't say there are any with respect to the Northwest Territories government. They obviously, as you know, are looking for devolution to occur, so that they get more control of the process in the north. I did spend some time with them, and that's their main pitch, because they believe those decisions should be made in the north.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  It will be a sort of indirect comment in that I wasn't specifically looking at that issue. I did note how it occurred in the Yukon and the fact that they're moving in that direction—that is, the federal government—in both the NWT and Nunavut. I don't think there's any doubt that the complexity in the Northwest Territories relating to individual regional land claim agreements will add to that problem.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I don't want to be difficult, but I'm trying to separate the two reports I did, one after the other. One was on the appointment process in Alberta relating to agencies, boards, and commissions, and I clearly heard it there; there's no question about it. The recommendation that we made—which I would have made, I think, if I had heard a lot about it, in the Northwest Territories—was that the appointment process should be transparent, based on qualifications for the jobs as opposed to politics.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Are you referring to the responsibility the minister has under section 130 of the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act, whereby he gets recommendations and then a further review is done in Ottawa?

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  You'll note that this was one of the recommendations I made, number 17: that a protocol be developed to deal with those, because I heard those complaints. I'm not saying which way it should go; I'm just saying it should be more open and transparent—it's on page 31 of my report—and that a protocol should be developed so that people understand how this system actually works.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I tried to address that issue. I can't remember the recommendation specifically, but it's that there should be capacity. I guess it's on page 23; it's recommendation number seven. The specific recommendation relating to that issue was that the federal government should ensure that a regulatory body has a structured....