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'Not such a good deal'
Handley envisioned 'have' status for territory, but it was not to be

Mike W. Bryant
Northern News Services
Published Monday, March 31, 2014

NORTHWEST TERRITORIES
Then Premier Joe Handley stood before a throng of reporters with a proverbial feather in his cap to make an historical announcement.

NNSL photo/graphic

Former premier Joe Handley said he had hoped for a devolution deal with 100 per cent of the resource royalties, but it didn't happen. - NNSL file photo

It was March 2, 2005 and the long-sought-after agreement-in-principle on devolution was to be presented to the territorial government by Ottawa "within weeks."

"Next to a final agreement, this is the most important achievement we can have as a territory in my view," Handley told the beaming members of the press gallery.

There was reason for optimism. Where the previous prime minister, Jean Chretien, was unmovable on resource royalties and power-sharing, Paul Martin was telling reporters that the three territories needed full provincial powers to "demonstrate unequivocally to the world that the Arctic is Canadian territory."

On the aboriginal government front, confidence was high that enough groups could be persuaded to sign onto devolution to give it legitimacy in eyes of Northerners.

The aboriginal governments with settled claims - the Inuvialuit, Gwich'in,

and the Sahtu, as well as the NWT Metis - were all on side. There was a strong hope that a breakthrough with the unsettled claimants - the Tlicho, Dehcho and Akaitcho - in the form of an interim arrangement, was just around the corner.

When weeks turned into months with no devolution deal in sight, however, it became abundantly clear that something was gumming up the works.

Time was of the essence. A devolution deal not only hinged on an agreement with aboriginal groups, it required a sympathetic and willing government in Ottawa. Martin's scandal-plagued minority government was hanging on by its teeth.

"Paul Martin I think came closest out of any of the prime ministers of sharing my vision of the North as being a 'have' jurisdiction,'" said Handley, whose last political foray was an unsuccessful run for the Liberals in 2011.

"He was ready to work with us to make all three territories have jurisdiction someday if they had resource development.

"I felt we were making good progress. Of course, Stephen Harper stopped all that. He really didn't want to work with us. He said the right things but his government just didn't have an eye on Northern economic development. It was on Canadian economic development."

One sticking point, unresolved through negotiations with both Martin and Harper, was Handley's desire for the territory to claim 100 per cent of resource royalties on oil and gas and mining. Handley didn't envision a deal offering merely a portion of resource royalties to top off the annual basic grant that provided the bulk of the GNWT's budget. That was the deal the Yukon got with their devolution agreement.

With the Mackenzie Valley pipeline considered a real possibility and diamond mines digging up riches in the Barrenlands, Handley believed a 'have' status for the territory was possible - providing it had the revenue.

"I was saying, 'look, give us our royalties the same as they do in Alberta and if it someday amounts to more than what we need to manage our budgets, then we will pay basically into an equalization formula. We will donate some back to the other provinces,'" said Handley.

"But Ottawa, they had their eyes on that oil and gas money and the diamond money, and they weren't ready to give us 100 per cent or even anywhere near that."

With oil and gas on the back burner, a 'have' status for the territory wouldn't be possible now, said Handley. Nonetheless, in his estimation the territorial government gave up too much in the deal signed by Harper and Premier Bob McLeod.

"I think we got drawn into it, and we were out-negotiated in my view, but that's speaking from outside," said Handley.

"If resources don't happen in the next 10 years, they will probably say it was a great deal. If resource development happens, then I think it's not such a good deal anymore. As much as we like to be optimistic about being able to re-negotiating a new arrangement, that's going to be

tough with Ottawa."

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