Caroline Cochrane

This is critical. I mean, it's too bad COVID-19 hit, because people need to go into the communities and see how people are living. The Regular Member, while she was a chief, did take me to the reserve and showed me some of the issues that they were seeing, and I advocate that, as soon as possible, all Members do that. Absolutely. I've already written a letter of support to the Salt River First Nation when they put in the proposals for these shovel-ready projects, so that is a commitment that I've already done and will carry forward. However, I can't commit to bringing it to the weekly meetings...

Again, to my knowledge, the government isn't a party to the land entitlement claim because it's a reserve. We don't have authority on that agreement, but we do have the appendixes. Appendix A, which is talking about the land, is actually done, in my understanding. It's Appendix C that is about programs and services.

We're more than willing to work with Salt River on this. I think the MLA would know that, when I was the Minister of housing in the last Assembly, for many years, housing had not been provided on that reserve, and I stood up and said, "We need to provide services to that reserve."...

Mr. Speaker, the COVID-19 pandemic is a global crisis on a level the world has not seen in generations. Taking action to slow its spread and protect public health has required leadership from all levels of government. Today, I would like to highlight the work that has been done by the Department of Municipal and Community Affairs and the Emergency Management Organization in response to COVID-19. The Department of Municipal and Community Affairs, or MACA, has the mandated responsibility for public safety within the Northwest Territories. To accomplish this, MACA houses the Emergency Management...

Absolutely. Any member of the public can phone any department to the Government of the Northwest Territories and ask about our programs and services that we provide. However, in saying that, our employees, there is a balance, again. It's between confidentiality and informing them about programs. If it's only about asking, "What programs, services do you have?" go ahead, call. If you're phoning to ask about somebody's income support or somebody in housing, you're not going to get that answer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I've only been in the Assembly here, this is my second Assembly, but I think this is probably an age-old question, in my opinion, because even in the last Assembly, they were talking about asking the Assembly before. When I first was in the Assembly four years ago, I thought it was okay. Anybody could pick up the phone and call my staff. In fact, I think I gave that direction to an MLA. It soon bit me, Mr. Speaker. The reason that we try not to, there are two reasons. One is accountability. It's really important that Ministers know the issues that are going on the...

Absolutely. The land claims for all of the Indigenous governments are critical, and Salt River is no different than any other one. We have a trilateral working group. They have met twice already since the beginning of this term, and the official steering committee has met even more regularly. They are meeting regularly already. If the Salt River First Nation is interested in advancing the treaty settlement agreement with Canada, it might be time that we want to sit down and talk about other strategic approaches to working with the federal government. We're open to working with the Salt River...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Government of the Northwest Territories is not a party to the Salt River treaty settlement agreement. It's a party to Schedule B. The agreement is between the federal government and Salt River, but Schedule B, which is attached to the agreement, addresses the transfer of Commissioner's lands to Canada. It also talks about the Appendix C as regarding the programs and services that you will receive on the reserve. A trilateral working group has been formed to undertake the discussions pursuant to the terms of reference that have been agreed upon by Canada, the GNWT...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can't talk for Dr. Kandola. She's not here to speak for herself. I can talk about my understanding of phase 1 when we came in, so the end of the Act. Again, we went back to the Public Health Act. Section 33(1), says that, during a state of public health emergency, the CPHO may make orders and provide direction restricting travel to or from any area within the NWT. That was the point that we were discussing right through. My understanding then is that, when someone comes to the border, we can't tell you that you can't come to the border, that you have a charter right...

Actually, at the Cabinet table, we never actually said, "Do we want people to stay or not?" That wasn't the question, but the reality is, with the Ministers and myself included, it makes sense for us to limit our travel outside the Northwest Territories this summer. The numbers of COVID-19 infections in the South are still rising. We haven't flattened that curve, yet, so I think, at this point, my personal opinion is that it would make sense for as many people to travel in the North as possible. What we're doing about it is we have Spectacular NWT; we're talking about it now. Our Minister of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was trying to remember the name of the framework that we just provided to standing committee less than a month ago, I believe, although my time is running into each other. We identified early on, when the COVID-19 pandemic hit us, that we were facing not only a public health crisis, but people were saying an economic crisis, and I saw a social crisis coming, as well. So we had businesses that were closing. We had people who needed places to live. We had addiction issues, mental health issues, serious issues going on, and so right away we said, "What are we going to do...