EdinburghNLP/nunavut-hansard-plusplus huggingface dataset:
They were responsible for petroleum resources and although there wasn’t much to administer initially, once the offshore petroleum resources were discovered, although they were situated deep offshore, since the federal government has offshore rights and oil was discovered, Newfoundland demanded all the royalties.
Danny Williams, the Premier of Newfoundland at the time, negotiated these offshore royalty rates.
Can we keep these types of historic events in mind when it is our turn to negotiate these devolution issues?
(interpretation ends) Our window (interpretation) can be an example.
When it comes to a measly 50-50 royalty rate, I doubt I personally would sign off on it if I were the one who had to sign it, as the NWT government devolution agreement states.
With such a low royalty rate or even with 50 plus rates, I personally wouldn’t even sign it.
(interpretation ends) I think we should negotiate for a better deal. (interpretation) Can you include this in the list of items for consideration?
Since Nunavut comprises a large part of Canada, can’t we fight towards a larger share of the pie when it comes to royalties? We should be as immovable as a brick wall.
When you read the devolution agreement that the NWT government signed off on, it is too little in my opinion.
Can the minister, along with her negotiators, consider looking at Canada as a whole when they are looking for examples?
As an example, if we look to the mining development companies and the provinces, you can look at Saskatchewan and potash, as there is a very large deposit of that mineral.
Saskatchewan pretty much has a monopoly on potash development and they get all the royalties.
If we were to start off in that manner, it would be much preferable and not to rush into an agreement just for the sake of it. We should harden our position much as the provinces did.
I would like to ask if this, indeed, is the case.
I also thank our colleague for providing such great issues to take into consideration. Additionally, discussions are underway on the negotiable items for placement onto the negotiating table. They are preparing their positions on various issues that will be on the negotiating table.
With respect to the question of the replacement of the previous minister, who was it again?
The federal government minister for AANDC, the previous Minister Duncan’s position, where we held discussions with the department, Minister Valcourt is the successor minister.
Since he is new, I couldn’t recall his name.
They have started sending their written reports called preliminary reports to the department and later on this spring, the final report will be submitted.
Furthermore, I can say that our colleagues to the west, both the Yukon and the NWT, have completed their devolution negotiations, as we just heard on the news two days ago about the successful completion of their talks. I congratulate the people and the NWT government for their success as they are on the verge of signing off on their agreement. Due to their paving the way in this area, we, the Territory of Nunavut, will be able to review their devolution agreement, although we aren’t beholden to the same type of agreement simply because of the unique situation here in Nunavut.
The same type of agreement wouldn’t necessarily be applicable here since we want our own unique agreement.
If I am remiss in outlining these issues, then our Chief Negotiator for Devolution, Mr. Akeeagok, can elaborate on these issues as required.
Mr. Akeeagok, did you want to make some additions?
Yes, it was good to hear the comments from the member. In the year 2008, we signed off on a memorandum of understanding with NTI, the federal government, and our Nunavut government on the issue of petroleum resources and this is already public information.
This set of negotiations will be quite difficult, which seems obvious, but again, this is another matter we will have to consider in light of our need to be prepared for these talks. It was quite interesting to listen to the member’s comments in this respect.
Yes, I have another question.
I believe we have to be very careful in monitoring that. Further, as our Premier, I want her to know that if she kept the MLAs informed about any progress, especially prior to signing on to the process, it would be much better.
If the whole devolution process is to proceed, it will require consideration of the fact that Nunavut has no road system nor do we have any access roads to these mineral deposits, especially to share in development costs.
Prior to any production, they require huge amounts of capital to construct their infrastructure.
Today, we all know at this time that we only have one producing mine here in Nunavut. If this government receives royalties from this mine, which is low, and we are to receive 50 percent of these royalties, then we can’t even make plans for capital projects.
So in our future, when the Nunavut government does get an agreement on royalties, in my opinion, we should receive more than 50 percent.
Here is my reason: our shipping season lasts only one season during the summer, perhaps to the extent of three or four months a year.
Some communities have a five-month window, such as Iqaluit, which can perhaps reach that five-month period.
However, most other communities are restricted to a three-month period for shipping goods for construction projects. We can only ship them via sealift vessels.
So I urge this government to commit to this process and to ensure that members are kept abreast of any developments so that the concepts we shared can be reviewed. Perhaps before we vote on this matter, it may behove us to hold a special briefing session. I would like to hear more about this initiative.
It is obvious that the administrators and the various bodies that may need to be transferred to Nunavut for this may be beneficial. We can find these matters out at any time.
Can the Premier agree to hold a special briefing meeting on this matter prior to the end of this session?
I thank the member for his comments and his question.
We are planning it at this time in regard to devolution.
It’s being planned, including briefing the schools to find out exactly what devolution is because our young people have to know about it. They are our future.
We have been doing some briefing on devolution with the schools and the public as well. We have been giving out information regarding devolution.
I could say that we will be briefing the members as well before the end of this session.
Further, since this is only one set of negotiations, it will be a very important issue for the federal government, especially the most important matter to us, which is our extreme environment. I can call our lands harsh and cold.
The reason why I bring it up is to put it in the context of arctic sovereignty. With Inuit being at the forefront of arctic sovereignty for Canada, I believe that there should be a clause related to this issue. In my opinion, we should include some sort of arctic sovereignty protocol, but I’m unsure of how to word it in the agreement. (interpretation ends) It’s unique (interpretation) and Inuit are in this harsh environment for this reason, the (interpretation ends) arctic sovereignty issue.
(interpretation) I will table a document if I were allowed to table a document, Mr. Chairman (interpretation ends) and my colleagues, ideas about arctic sovereignty. (interpretation) Senator Watt hosted a meeting in relation to this.
Does (interpretation ends) arctic sovereignty (interpretation) provide Inuit with further rights or do only our governments have this type of right? The discussion on arctic sovereignty that I participated in will be the subject of the document I will table. It is purely for speculative thinking, although it is not quite finished yet.
My colleague, whom I see regularly, has a card with a saying, (interpretation ends) “Arctic Sovereignty Includes Me.” Me too!
(interpretation) Inuit live in a harsh environment with icecaps because without icecaps, we wouldn’t be living in such a harsh environment and our animals wouldn’t be what they are without the environment.
Due to these reasons, can this issue be taken into consideration during this process, arctic sovereignty, and how we can include it in our discussions along with wording?
Our arctic foundation is an extremely important matter, including the fact that Inuit have to be acknowledged for providing the foundation. As we have continued to maintain, Inuit are the reason why the Arctic is so important. (interpretation ends) It is the people when it comes to sovereignty. (interpretation) We continually state that as our position.
Those are very good ideas to consider as we prepare to start down the road towards devolution negotiations, which includes identifying issues for negotiations.
Further, I urge and encourage my colleague to contact the staff either during or after our sessions to put forward his ideas to either Mr. Akeeagok or to our department, to the administrators, especially to the devolution staff. They should be able to ask further questions.
We also want to ensure members have the opportunity to voice their concerns or pass along their vision for this initiative. So we are open to that as this is a new development that we’re undertaking. This process will also take several years to complete, which seems obvious, as we won’t be able to complete it overnight.
We will ensure that all members have that opportunity.
I wish to return to the matter of the devolution agreement as we may not have a chance once it is initiated.
When speaking of royalties, we have to really be knowledgeable of and monitor that most of our royalties will accrue from mineral deposit development projects than petroleum royalties (interpretation ends) maybe for the next 50 years.
(interpretation) The reason for that is many so-called experts in the petroleum sector as well as exploration companies believe that a lot of petroleum resources lie in our territory.
However, the experts’ published reports, especially the United States geologists, have stated that (interpretation ends) proven reserves, including all the Arctic nations, (interpretation) if those reserves were to be sold today, not 50 years from now, but today in this global market, it may last only three years. (interpretation ends) Ten times or more (interpretation) amounts of reserves need to be found prior to us being able to sell the petroleum products.
In the NWT, there are proven reserves, such as at Norman Wells, along with natural gas deposits in the Beaufort Sea. Maybe for the NWT, a 50-50 split may be sufficient for their government, but here in Nunavut, I think it has to be a larger share due to our challenges.
Perhaps the minister can conduct more research into these issues as to whether that is, indeed, the case.
Yes, most of the comments are being noted, including the various opinions and ideas that members have relayed. As we prepare for this initiative, all of these issues will be taken into consideration.
I wanted to go back to the Government of Nunavut’s Interdepartmental Nutrition North Canada Subsidy Program Monitoring Committee. It was my understanding that when the Premier announced this, it was within her department, under EIA, that was handling this. Could the minister clarify: are any employees within her department involved with the monitoring of this?
When we started discussion on the Nutrition North program, I wanted information from the southern administrators of the program for foodstuffs originating from southern locales to the north.
When the initial discussions started to take place, I wanted to find out exactly what type of program it was, its purpose, and that is why I also asked my senior staff to do some research on the issues that they were considering.
At that time, the standing committee reviewing the program was struck, although many of their original staff left.
This review, which is separate from the program, will be something that the economic development and transportation department can speak to in their reports.
However, I can ask my Deputy Minister, Mr. Vandermeulen, to elaborate briefly on it, as he has some background on it. Provided the Chairman is amenable to this request, I would like him to speak to this issue.
The committee is an interdepartmental committee, to the best of my knowledge, and has members on it from a number of different committees.
In the past, Executive and Intergovernmental Affairs has had representation, but most of the work is being brought together under the Department of Economic Development and Transportation.
Just to clarify, in the explanation of what the committee was actually supposed to do, I think its mandate was to monitor the Nutrition North Canada Subsidy Program.
Is that still the mandate of what the committee does when they meet? It sounds like it is just being shuffled off to Economic Development and Transportation under the Poverty Reduction Strategy and said, “Take care of it,” with stuff that has been going on within the department.
What I would have thought was under EIA, it would be a better fit because you would be communicating directly with the federal government from your department, which does that on a regular basis, communicating.
As Mr. Schell was pointing out, there are government officials who are working in Ottawa, who are close to Parliament Hill, who would actually be able to explain better what problems or successes we are having with the Nutrition North Canada Program.
With the way it sounds like, I don’t know the department is handling it.
It’s not going to be expressed properly to the federal government because I don’t know whether your department gave the mandate for Economic Development and Transportation to actually go to the federal government and tell Aboriginal Affairs that the program is working or not working.
So if we could get some clarification on that.
At the time when Nutrition North was first introduced and discussions were underway, a committee was struck, which is now up and running. The Makimaniq Anti-poverty Secretariat is part of the economic development and transportation department and this program was introduced prior to their creation.
We didn’t want to have a two-pronged approach, which is why there is only one administration responsible for the program.
Furthermore, I have faith in their mandate and to ensure that the minister is capable of fulfilling their duty, we interact with various levels of government and hold discussions with our federal government counterparts.
If I were to be tasked by the members on this issue or if anyone wishes to use our offices, our door is always open and this includes the Minister responsible for Economic Development and Transportation’s door that is always open as well.
We are always open to frank discussions with the Government of Canada.
In terms of devolution, I know Mr. Curley had spoken quite a bit and had some suggestions and whatnot. I’m just curious in terms of the Northwest Territories had the Prime Minister up signing yesterday, I believe it was.
Is there a rough timeline as to what the Nunavut government is looking at in terms of having a signed devolution agreement?
First of all, the negotiable items listed in the (interpretation ends) devolution protocol (interpretation) have to be completed as it lists the items up for negotiation.
Once it has been completed and agreed to and if the federal government agrees to this protocol, then it can move forward.
Since this process is barely started, with the negotiations scheduled tentatively, I can’t put a date as to when this process would be completed nor can anyone else put a definitive date on it. However, we can only assume that it will happen some time in our future, perhaps a decade. The NWT government took ten years to complete their negotiations.
Therefore, I can’t put a date as the completion date, although I am quite pleased that we have now started the devolution process for the first time here in Nunavut.
Also, Mr. Curley had mentioned about the resource revenue funding from exploration and extraction of resources, whether it is oil or minerals across the territory.
My understanding of devolution is it also requires something that would be the federal responsibility now that would be transferred to the territory, which actually would mean jobs, which federal jobs now would become territorial jobs.
How many jobs are we talking about?  I’m sure the department has been doing research and trying to find out, like you said, what would be traded off, and then there would be some sort of an implementation process because it wouldn’t be like overnight that jobs would be transferred.
How many jobs are we talking about that the federal government has here in the territory?
If you don’t mind, I will ask Mr. Akeeagok to respond to that question.
Mr. Akeeagok (interpretation): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. (interpretation ends) In terms of how many positions there currently are within the federal government, I don’t have the specifics. In terms of how many will be transferred that will be part of the negotiations, I don’t want to give any expectations to this House as to how many will be in terms of negotiations and for negotiations.
For the current federal positions, I don’t have it here specifically with me, but there are positions that are in the territory and there are positions that are outside of the territory. We have compiled all those and it is part of preparing for our negotiations.
So it is one that I don’t want to give this House false information or information that is incorrect, which is subject to change.
I want to be very cautious on that as it is subject for negotiation. (interpretation)Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
For the jobs that are outside of the territory, once the negotiations happen, would those jobs still be outside of the territory and Nunavut residents would move out of the territory to work there or would they be transferred here within the territory?
I asked this mainly because it could create a housing problem like we already have within the territory.
At this time, what we have done is we are planning because they would be coming over here and it would be better for them to work here.
Do you happen to have a number in terms of what percentage of federal government employees are beneficiaries?
I’m sorry, but we don’t have that information at this time.
Without that information, it’s hard to ask the next question. I guess I can rephrase it in a sense. The Government of Nunavut is working towards a representative government which possibly could be 85 percent.
I think we’re trying to go for 52 percent. If the numbers within the federal government are quite low, then that actually might skew the numbers in terms of the representative workforce. Is that something that your department is looking at or thinking about?
This will be part of the negotiation process for devolution.
It’s not happening right now and I’m pretty sure we will have to be a representative government down the road. CanNor, which is a division in the Canadian government, has put that into place, which would be a good starting point related to (interpretation ends) internships, (interpretation) where people work for a period of three or four months as an intern.
I can’t recall the exact time period, but it is basically an internship program.
Further down the road as more of our residents complete their education and our workforce grows, this will improve.
As of today, what is the status of the transboundary negotiations with First Nations groups in northern Saskatchewan and Manitoba?
At this time, nothing has really happened on the transboundary issues with Saskatchewan and Manitoba, and they also have a meeting every so often.
I will get Mr. Vandermeulen to elaborate on that.
The transboundary discussions that are taking place are primarily as a result of an out-of-court settlement between Canada and the Denesuline of Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
Those discussions are ongoing. We had observers as part of that process.
The difficulty in giving you any kind of update on the negotiations is that there are binding confidentiality agreements on everyone around it.
So it is very difficult for us to give you a meaningful update on the negotiations.
I’m having a little chuckle. With some of the answers we’re getting, I was thinking that maybe there is a binding agreement not to answer any of the questions.
What I would like to know is: how long has this boundary issue been going on?
This has been ongoing for quite some time, even before Nunavut came to be. If you don’t mind, Mr. Chairman, I will get Mr. Vandermeulen to make an additional response to the member.
They have been doing negotiations on those issues even before Nunavut was created.
Chairman: Madam Premier, (interpretation) I apologize as I was busy with something. Did you want one of your officials to respond?
Hon. Eva Aariak (interpretation): I am fine with the response I just gave. They have been doing negotiations on transboundary issues even before Nunavut came to be.
I am sorry, Premier.
I thought I had heard that Mr. Vandermeulen was going to give more of a reply.
I guess my next question would be if these transboundary issues were going on, with some of the paperwork I was reading and researching, I think it was as far back as 1993. How did the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement get signed if these issues were not worked out?
I think it’s because Article 40 was able to make the Nunavut Land Claims Agreement.
In terms of the GN keeping residents in affected communities such as Arviat informed, how is the government doing that?
As Mr. Vandermeulen stated, this is not open to everyone.
It is under a confidentiality agreement.
It is my understanding that there was a meeting that happened in Arviat. Is that true?
As far as I know, NTI had a private meeting on that.
So is that under the assumption that everybody who was at that meeting signed some piece of paper in terms of a confidentiality agreement?
This was NTI’s project, so I’m not really sure that happened.
In terms of the negotiations and the conversations that are going on, does the Government of Nunavut stand to gain anything from these negotiations?
When they are in negotiations, if we have anything that we can contribute to them, we can try to help them out in their negotiations.
During the last federal election, there were campaign promises about a Manitoba-Nunavut road.
Will negotiations slow down the progress of the road?
We’re not really sure whether that road will be affected or not.
Could the minister commit to providing us with information once she is allowed to provide us with that information?
I haven’t said that I wouldn’t be giving any information. That’s not the case.
Whenever there has to be any information given, we will provide the information.
Mr. Elliott: I’m done, Mr. Chairman.
We are on page B-9. Mr. Ningeongan.
In regard to the comments Mr. Curley made earlier, as regular members, if we were to be given some items that could be discussed in the devolution agreement, perhaps we could take a look at them first as regular members and probably put down what we want to see as well.
Mr. Elliott touched up on the Manitoba-Nunavut all-weather road.
I thought that we would be getting a road soon.
I just want to know what is happening with that.
Can you give us some information as to where you are at on that road project?
I also thank our colleague for his questions.
With respect to communications and keeping the members informed about the negotiable items, I can commit to providing more information once the information is made available to us.
Further, with respect to the highway you asked about, the question would be better directed to the Department of Economic Development and Transportation as to the current status of the proposal and whether any talks have been initiated.
Since the Minister of Economic Development and Transportation is at this meeting, I would ask that he be allowed to respond as it would be good to hear about the status of this road.
Let me ask Minister Taptuna if he can respond to the question.
The discussions are ongoing with Manitoba with our department.
As the member is well aware, the cost of the project is well beyond this government’s allotted budget.