Ottawa silent on transitional funding

IQALUIT – Indian Affairs Minister Jane Stewart still has nothing to say about whether or not Ottawa will provide more money to pay extra transitional costs of dividing the Northwest Territories and creating Nunavut.

Last October, GNWT officials unveiled a detailed division transition plan, claiming the one-time costs of dividing the NWT could be $135.7 million more than Ottawa had first estimated.

But in a carefully-worded press release Dec. 22, neither Stewart nor NWT Premier Don Morin had anything to say about the transitional funding issue.

That’s despite a series of recent meetings during which GNWT officials have been lobbying Ottawa for more money to pay transition costs.

Instead, the two governments have announced that they’ve reached what they call “common understandings” on three issues.

Those “common understandings” are:

* The federal response to the report of the Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples will include a “northern perspective.”
* In its self-government negotiations with western aboriginal groups, Ottawa will recognize that the new western territory will have an “effective central government” after division.
* Devolution activities will be influenced by the western constitutional process.

The press release claims that these common understandings “signal the commitment of the GNWT and DIAND to work in partnership as the future direction of the NWT unfolds.”