Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the question from the member. I will just quickly give you a sense of scale of how long this has been in the works. There have been different numbers used, but we use the target date of 1967, when we became an official government and the pla

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We agreed to the process. We asked to fast track it. We were very cognizant of October 3, 2015, which is about 665 days away, which is the next election for us. If we didn't do the implementation right away and instead had a further year's delay for the

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  What we have is a bill that contains both of those components. When we had our discussions, as the premier indicated this morning before the Senate committee, we came to an agreement on how we would move forward on this. This is a political priority for us. The federal government

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I apologize. In our jurisdiction, we always have to get the nod from the chair to be able to open our mouth.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  I did notice the free-flow. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, all of the involved parties and partners were aware of the process. There is some debate over some of the particulars relating to the regulatory side, the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. But on the intent to go forwa

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. The member has raised that issue. We've had our legal folks look at the issue in its full context, within the reading of the role of the commissioner and the context of the bill before this House. It's our determination, which we'd be happy to share with

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Mr. Chairman, I don't necessarily want to debate this point unless it's the will of the committee. We have two pages of legal analysis dealing with that particular issue within the context of the mandates of other commissioners in the other territories, the wording and what's r

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Absolutely, Mr. Bevington. We anticipate that if the committee comes to the Northwest Territories, we'll be invited to the table and will be there and participate fully. Thank you.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and the premier does extend his regrets and appreciates your comments. Thank you for the invitation to address the House of Commons committee on aboriginal affairs. I'm pleased to be here to speak to you today about Bill C-15, Northwest Territories Devol

Environment committee  To date, our involvement has tended to be writing letters of concern at the senior bureaucratic level. When development is being proposed or moving through the approval process in Alberta at a rapid pace, the citizens from the aboriginal governments whom you've heard, the people,

Environment committee  There is going to have to be a considerable amount of technical, environmental, and scientific work done for anybody to make an informed decision. The Government of the Northwest Territories has some of its own hydroelectric aspirations. We have one small development, but it's

Environment committee  What I would suggest is very similar to what we're suggesting with the Mackenzie River Basin transboundary agreement, that as the government of the land, it has a leadership role to play. And if you look over the whole Canadian landscape, there are overlapping issues of water tie

Environment committee  There are very few monitoring stations. We test the water that we take out of waterways for municipal and community use. The other monitoring is done by the federal government. The Mackenzie River Basin Board, as well, has tried to do some assessments of the aquatic ecosystems,

Environment committee  That budget hasn't changed since they signed it. So when you consider inflation and wage increases and such, there's very little money left, other than to pay wages and office space. They've been getting some other help off the books to do some things. But one of the things we've

Environment committee  I've been raising the issue. I was Minister of Environment and Natural Resources for some time in the last assembly as well. Politically it has to be raised at that table. There is a receptiveness there currently. The other thing that is going to push it is people squeezing their