Bob McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Northwest Territories residents were invited to submit their ideas for naming the Government of the Northwest Territories-owned buildings through an ad campaign that started the week of February 18th. Nominations were open until the 15th of March. I am pleased to advise the Member and this House that the Government of the Northwest Territories has received a total of 89 naming ideas from the public for the naming of three government office buildings located in Fort Simpson, Inuvik, and Yellowknife.

My expectation is that we should expect something within the next few months, hopefully before the August session. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Twenty-two submissions were for the Inuvik government building, three submissions were received for the Fort Simpson government building, and 64 submissions were received for the Yellowknife government building. The campaign to name these buildings was launched with a website, in the newspaper, and on social media platforms. Letters were also sent to the Standing Committee on Priorities and Planning as well as Indigenous governments and municipal heritage committees. The guidelines for selecting names for Government of the Northwest Territories-owned office buildings sets out how the...

It's getting kind of late in the day for this Legislative Assembly. We have been participating with the federal government on the development of their Indigenous rights framework, which we are now aware that that will be pushed back until the next federal government. We are in a situation where we are now doing a review of our Indigenous government relations, and the purpose of this review will be to identify best practices and areas where we can improve our Indigenous relations across the government. Our expectation is that we will complete it before the 18th Assembly, and our expectation is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What I have been hearing is it's been working quite well. The intergovernmental forum, we are in kind of a push-pull situation, where our Aboriginal government partners are saying that we are having too much legislation or it's going too fast on the one hand and, on the other hand, our colleagues here in this House have been asking for more and more legislation. We are kind of in a unique push-pull situation, where I guess we all have to manage it to get things done.

Yes, we did hear that lack of capacity and requests for more resources very loud and clear. I should point out, as the Member has said, we have been engaged in collaborative legislative development with the Northwest Territories' Indigenous governments as part of the evolution of the devolution-related legislation, and this has included early discussions to inform key elements of legislation and sharing drafts to ensure that their perspectives are understood and incorporated.

Collaborative development, when we are doing that work, we have to remember that, although we work collaboratively with...

As with many things, this has been an evolving process. At one time, government did all of the drafting of legislation, and then we got into settlement of land claims and self-government. In those cases, we had Aboriginal governments that participated in the drafting of legislation. I think it was further advanced where, as a condition of devolution, we agreed to an intergovernmental process whereby we would work with Aboriginal governments that signed on to devolution for specific legislation or, as we called it, "mirror legislation" to develop made-in-the-North legislation.

Also, in specific...

Our government went through a very long consultative process and responded to what we heard. Through a review of climate change programs in Canadian jurisdictions, it was evident that the most important factors in the success of these programs were leadership and the authority to act.

Addressing climate change is a priority of this government. We have developed both a Climate Change Strategic Framework and Action Plan, which is linked to our work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the energy plan. Further, we have organized ourselves so that climate change is considered in all programs...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Taltson project is important for many reasons and, as the Member knows, we received considerable support from the federal government to help with the development of this project and the overall business case. As we told the Prime Minister, we want to be part of the overall solution in dealing with climate change. I think that the federal government recognizes, as does our government, the potential of the project as part of the overall climate change efforts.

The reality is that remote mines make up 50 percent of our emissions profile and need to be part of the...

Addressing climate change is a priority of the 18th Legislative Assembly. Within the life of this government, we have developed both a Climate Change Strategic Framework and Action Plan, which is linked to our work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through the energy plan. The Government of the Northwest Territories is now poised to take real action over the next five years and make progress on our transition to a lower-carbon economy, improving our knowledge of climate change impacts, and building resilience in adapting to climate change. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.