Yellowknife (May 16/05) - Northern leaders are asking Ottawa for $100 million to cover the social impacts of the Mackenzie Gas Project.

Nellie Cournoyea: Confident a deal can be reached.

"We may not get everything, but we have good arguments to put forward," Premier Joe Handley said Friday after meeting in Calgary with territorial leaders.

With Handley were Nellie Cournoyea of the Inuvialuit Regional Corp., Fred Carmichael of the Aboriginal Pipeline Group, and Gwich'in chief Richard Nerysoo.

Handley said he expects to speak with representatives from the Deh Cho and Sahtu before he meets with Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan early this week. McLellan is the lead minister on the $7 billion pipeline project.

A hundred million a year should be sufficient to meet the needs of all regions in the Northwest Territories, Handley said.

He expects that money to be split between the territorial and first nations governments - $75M and $25M respectively.

Representatives of Imperial Oil had complained that aboriginal negotiators were asking for hundreds of millions of dollars to deal with social impacts that were beyond the scope of the pipeline.

Cournoyea said aboriginal leaders were aware of Imperial's frustration. She is confident a deal can be reached, even if Prime Minister Paul Martin's Liberal government falls next week.

"They will still be the government through the election period," Cournoyea said.

The $100 million would begin to flow to the territorial government immediately, Handley said, and would be in addition to present federal funding. Handley said the annual social impact payments would continue until Ottawa and the territorial government reach an agreement on devolution and resource revenue sharing.