Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services

Yellowknife (Jan 24/00) - The limit to the speed with which the transfer of federal powers to the North occurs will be set by Northern leaders and dictated from Ottawa, said federal minister Robert Nault last week.

During a three-day swing through Yellowknife, Deline and Fort Liard, the minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development said the time is right to give the NWT power to regulate its own resources and have a share in the royalties they bring.

"I'll go as fast as people's political will allows," said Nault during an interview with News/North Thursday. He outlined his plans for "devolution" of powers to the North during a speech to the legislature earlier in the day.

"The obvious differences between what has been done in the past is there's a commitment by all levels of government in the NWT to move ahead," said Nault. "I don't think that was the case previously."

Premier Stephen Kakfwi says the federal, territorial and aboriginal governments are starting to share a common vision of the future.

"The vision of the aboriginal leaders is becoming clearly the vision of the Government of the Northwest Territories and the federal government is starting to articulate a vision that is just in stride with those," said Kakfwi.

With that new understanding, the premier believes the governments can move quickly together and there is no need to set artificial deadlines.

"The commitment, the energy and the interest the minister had made is as good and better than a timeline. I think he's going to move as quickly and as fast as we can move together in the North.

"That is a very strong commitment and I'm very happy with that."

One of the main challenges of transferring federal jurisdiction over natural resources to the North is determining how they will be shared between public and aboriginal governments.

That will be one of the key issues that will be dealt with at an intergovernmental forum planned for August. Nault said all NWT aboriginal groups have agreed to participate in the forum, along with the federal and territorial governments.

"This intergovernmental forum is hopefully going to trigger a work plan and the direction we will take," said Nault.

Devolution of powers has already begun, with the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board taking responsibility for assessing environmental impacts of proposed projects.

Nault would not estimate how long it would take to negotiate the transfer of power.

He said the process would not have to wait until the last self-government agreement is negotiated.

"We have signalled that we don't think anyone should have a veto over this process, and that one group should hold up the aspirations of Northerners to have control over their own destiny ... I have made that very clear to all the groups involved."