More information requested for devolution talks
Richard Gleeson
Northern News Services
Yellowknife (Dec 15/00) - Aboriginal leaders want to take a closer look at the benefits and costs of devolution and need more help to do it.
That was the focus of recent talks between the aboriginal summit, premier Stephen Kakfwi and Finance Minister Joe Handley.
"We have to get into more detail and get more information before we can get into a formal process," said Graeme Dargo, executive director of the aboriginal summit. The summit includes aboriginal leaders from each region.
More detailed resource revenue projections need to be developed, models for sharing up revenues and responsibilities, and analysis of the impacts revenue sharing might have on self government negotiations are among the areas where the summit is looking for more information, Dargo said.
The summit discussed the current state of devolution negotiations on Monday during a 20 minute meeting with Minister of Indian Affairs and Northern Development Robert Nault.
Nault has agreed to attend the next intergovernmental forum, planned for March.
Premier Stephen Kakfwi said the summit, with the exception of the South Slave Metis Tribal Council, has agreed to start working on how to deal with the complex issue of devolution.
"We agreed to take up the federal offer to start working on a process, if possible a common negotiating position and to figure out the resources we need to move on," Kakfwi said.
The resources are needed most desperately by regional aboriginal governments, which are coping with land claim negotiations, their central role in a new environmental assessment regime and the day-to-day business of running a region.
"There's a bottleneck and it happens at the regional level -- they simply don't have the capacity to deal with the work," Dargo said. "Everyone wants to move ahead with this, it's just a question of getting the horses."
