Good morning. My name is Bob McLeod and I am the Premier of the Northwest Territories.
It is great to be here today and to see some familiar faces for what I hope will be an engaging discussion.
As Premier of the Northwest Territories, I have a responsibility to ensure that our government is making decisions that support our vision of creating a prosperous sustainable future for all of our residents. I firmly believe that to achieve that vision we need to draw on the things that have historically made us successful and take those strengths to the next level.
In the case of the Northwest Territories, what has made us successful is our long history of partnership and shared governance with Indigenous governments and organizations, and broad support for responsible resource and infrastructure development.
With 11 official languages, nine of which are Indigenous, and 33 communities spread out over more than 1.3 million square kilometres, the Northwest Territories is home to a small but diverse population. Of our approximately 44,000 residents, roughly half identify as First Nations, Inuit or Métis, and 29 of our 33 communities are majority Indigenous.
In the Northwest Territories, Indigenous and non-Indigenous people live, learn and work together. Our own Legislative Assembly Members reflect this fact, half of whom are Indigenous. Our Cabinet further reflects this reality with five of seven Ministers – myself included – being Indigenous.
The result is a public government where actions and decisions are informed by Indigenous views and priorities from the outset, and where our entire public service takes the responsibility to reflect the priorities of all residents - including Indigenous residents and their governments - seriously.
Partnership, cooperation and working together are more than buzzwords where we live. These concepts are the basis for our political and economic evolution and are how we will succeed or fail at bringing transformational infrastructure projects to our territory to support the aspirations of our people and strengthen our economy.
That economy is small and is heavily reliant on resource development. Mining, oil and gas account for more than 25 percent of our GDP. Our three operating diamond mines continue to be the engine driving our economy and have provided much-needed and well-paying jobs to our residents for over two decades.
However, due to fluctuating commodity prices, our public infrastructure deficit, and the continued challenge of being left out of decisions which profoundly affect our economic future, our economy has been shrinking.
Between 2007 and 2016, the Northwest Territories economy shrank from $4.5 billion to $3.7 billion. During that same time, territorial unemployment rose from 5.7 percent to 7.4 percent which resulted in 800 fewer jobs in the territory.
While the picture I have painted may seem bleak, the evolution of self-determination of northern and Indigenous governments in the Northwest Territories, is one our greatest economic and political opportunities for success going forward.
Since 1984, our government along with the Government of Canada has been party to six settled Indigenous claims. The majority of these agreements are land claims which formally recognize the rights of Indigenous governments to manage and benefit from the ownership of land and resources in their region, including renewable and non-renewable resources.
Settled agreements in the Northwest Territories have provided beneficiaries with monetary resources, ownership of significant tracts of land and resources that have been used to fuel economic opportunities. They allowed Indigenous governments to become major landholders and provided them with the authority to determine how large parts of the Northwest Territories are managed and developed.
For example, the Government of the Northwest Territories’ commitment to negotiate socioeconomic agreements with developers and provide support for the creation of Impact Benefit Agreements, resulted in Indigenous-owned businesses receiving more than $4.3 billion in direct contracting with our diamond mines since 1996. During that same time more than 9,400 person years of employment occurred for Indigenous residents of our territory.
Economic self-determination – the ability to pay for the decisions you make – is critically important to achieving true political self-determination. It is why as a government we continue to push for settled claims and are actively participating in 14 negotiating efforts along with our federal partners. It is also why, when the Government of the Northwest Territories took on responsibility for natural resources from the federal government in 2014, we made a point of offering up to 25 percent of our resource revenues to Indigenous Governments. There are not spending requirements on this money; it goes directly to Indigenous Governments for their use according to their priorities.
This agreement is still one of the richest offers of its kind in Canada, and it is speaks to our commitment to make sure that all of our residents share in the economic benefits of our territory. In supporting Indigenous self-determination through increased economic independence, we are helping to establish true economic and political self-determination for all Northerners.
Our willingness to support and promote the self-determination of Indigenous peoples in the Northwest Territories, is not only the right thing to do for our people, but it speaks to the history or reconciliation that exists in our territory; it is reconciliation in action.
The national dialogue around reconciliation between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Canadians has gone beyond a concept and, supported by the federal government, is resulting in huge economic and political shifts across our country. This is a good thing, and we welcome it in the Northwest Territories and think we have are a strong example of reconciliation in action that others can learn from.
Unlike other jurisdictions where this evolution of self-determination is still in the nascent stages of development, the Northwest Territories is an example of how real partnership with regional and community Indigenous governments can lead to increased political self-determination and economic participation for the North’s Indigenous people. Reconciliation is an ongoing process, but we think that our territory is well ahead of most of Canada in this regard.
An example of our commitment to work collaboratively with our Indigenous government partners, is the recent Economic Symposium that I hosted earlier this month.
This symposium was an unprecedented gathering of Indigenous government and organization leaders from across the territory, who together with the Government of the Northwest Territories discussed the state of the territorial economy. Being able to gather a group this diverse would be a tremendous accomplishment in and of itself in other jurisdictions, but what was truly impressive is what came out of these meetings.
Together, and with our federal government partners present, our leaders committed to finding innovative partnership approaches to lobby for, finance and support responsible resource development and transformational infrastructure projects. This agreement to seek out ways to bridge our infrastructure deficit and promote responsible resource development as partners and participants, marks a new chapter in the self-determination of northern peoples.
Northerners want the same things that all Canadians want: stable, secure jobs that given them the financial independence they need to care for themselves and their families. While we are constantly looking to diversify our economy by looking at sectors like agriculture and tourism, we recognize that responsible development of our natural resources is the biggest part of the plan for creating the Northwest Territories that we want to build together.
Canada can demonstrate its commitment to the Canadian North by working with us to plan for long term development that includes spending and investment in areas that are priorities for Northerners. A national plan for significant, strategic investment in the infrastructure necessary to grow and sustain our economy is a must.
We have a wealth of natural resources that have yet to be tapped, mostly due to the lack of infrastructure necessary to reach, extract and transport them. We have world class oil and gas reserves. We have gold and diamonds. We have cobalt, lithium and rare earth elements to fuel the global green economy. We have more than 11,000 MW of untapped hydroelectric potential.
What we don’t have is the roads, transmission lines, ports or pipelines to make development of many of these resources feasible.
Strategic, deliberate investment in just some of the infrastructure the Northwest Territories needs would help to unlock our potential, create jobs and opportunities for our residents, drive the national economy and create a legacy of public infrastructure for Northerners.
More than 22 years after the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples said that “the North itself is a region with little influence over its own destiny” and that “most of the levers of political and economic power continue to be held outside of the North,” our federal partners are finally listening to what Northerners want and need to be successful. Canada has come to the realization that other Arctic nations have embraced for some time and has been working to advance the Arctic Policy Framework to set out longer term policy and infrastructure commitments that will develop Northern Canada in the best interest of Northerners and all Canadians.
The Northwest Territories deserves to be valued participants in the Canadian economy, and our people deserve the opportunity to achieve economic as well as political self-determination. This requires that we have an opportunity to be part of national decision making that is affecting our future prosperity and economic livelihoods.
In the Northwest Territories that means federal commitments to develop infrastructure projects like the Mackenzie Valley Highway and the road to the Slave Geological Province, or expanding the Taltson Hydro-electric facility in partnership with us. These projects will not only spur on economic activity in the territory, but will directly employ our residents, will reduce the cost of living and will connect the Northwest Territories to the rest of Canada and to the opportunities that all Canadians deserve to share and enjoy.
Canada’s North and its peoples are ready to build off of what has contributed to our social and economic wellbeing in the past and become true play makers in the future development of our potential. In the Northwest Territories we are ready, willing and able to do that by working side-by-side and in partnership with our territorial and Indigenous government, and we need strong industry and federal government leaders to join us on that path.
Thank you.