Caroline Cochrane

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my statement today, I want to acknowledge that many people, including those who work in and around this Legislative Assembly and Government, are being retraumatized by the confirmation of the mass grave of Indigenous children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School. I am providing this notice so that those who are hurting may choose not to listen if they will be triggered by what I say.

Mr. Speaker, the confirmation of the remains of 215 Indigenous children at the Kamloops Indian Residential School last week is a reminder of a dark chapter of Canadian history...

Mr. Speaker, the Member knows me, and so she kind of put a trick question and said, Will you make it quick. That might be a little bit harder. What I can say is that we are meeting with the Indigenous governments in the multilateral forum which will be happening on June 11th. With the United Nations declaration, we've already formed officials groups with all the Indigenous governments. They've been working in the background. This meeting on June 11th, we'll be bringing forward topics. I believe in our agenda, there's eight topics at the moment.

So once we decide what we're doing with the United...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said in my earlier question, absolutely I want to. As soon as I seen the news and it was saying they found these children, I wanted to do the same, and I want to talk to our Prime Minister, and I am going to talk to our Prime Minister, Mr. Speaker. I am going to bring it up because I do think there is a Federal component in this as well.

But, Mr. Speaker, again, I have to be respectful of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission and our Indigenous governments. The Truth and Reconciliation Act Action No. 76(3) says: Aboriginal protocols shall be respected before any...

Mr. Speaker, the COVID19 pandemic has been a challenging time for all of us. Like all jurisdictions, our initial response was focused on public health measures. To date, we have been successful in protecting the health and safety of our residents thanks to the actions we took early and the commitment from residents to follow the public health orders and recommendations in order to limit the spread of COVID19.

As we continue our efforts to be one of the first jurisdictions in the country to successfully implement a vaccination program, we have also been focused on our social and economic...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm a bit confused on that question. I would ask that the Member actually meet with me in person later if she's willing to do that. My direction has been to Ministers since the beginning of this government has been that work with MLAs, work with stakeholders as much as possible. There will come times that we may have to fight. And ask any of the Ministers here. I can see the Member's shaking her head.

But you can ask any Minister here, that the direction has been work with people as much as possible. Pick your fights that you need to. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's nice to say that the Premier has privilege. A lot of people have privilege, and a lot of people don't.

Mr. Speaker, our intention when people come back and have to isolate is not about privilege. It's about accessibility. Anyone in the Northwest Territories that is going for medical or emergency or grievance, exceptional situations, will be covered by our isolation centres if they have no other safe place to isolate.

Everyone across the territories, people are privileged, people are not. At this point, we are not paying for the isolation centres for people that are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's an easy commitment. Absolutely, I can. All chiefs out there know that they can reach me. My life is pretty basic, go to work and go home. So they can reach me any evening and every weekend.

And I will make the commitment that I will call Chief Antoine this evening. If not Chief Antoine, I don't know what will happen, but tomorrow at the latest. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I do know Chief Antoine does have my number, and any chief can actually call me at any time. They also know that it's difficult to reach me during the days, and I think that's what the issue might be more so.

But, again, I did hear them. And I did have conversations with the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, and both of us agree that we need to be more concerned about the people on the ground. So we did have conversations, and we are looking. Actually, we will be bringing in either  I'm not sure what the term is, a pathfinder, a system's navigator...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, mental health is important. Never assume that somebody comes because they have a good job, that they come from a place of privilege. Sometimes people with good jobs have exceptional costs as well that are taking care of families. So I never go that way.

As for taxes, absolutely, Mr. Speaker. Actually, it's already covered. I'm just trying to look for that, yes.

So you can actually within our taxes at this point, you can actually use staycations for a tax exemption in the NWT. You can claim the lowest of the three following amounts: You can claim the value of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, yes, we do have a lot of conversations with the Premiers, Premiers across Canada. We usually meet on a biweekly basis, if not weekly, depending on the situations. The Northern Premiers also meet regularly as well.

Those relationships are important. And we're in a special situation. The three territories actually were the first in Canada actually to get the vaccinations. Thank you to all Premiers across of Canada for that consultation. But we also realized that we are exceptional in that we're a little bit isolated; there's not as many entrances and exits...