Caroline Cochrane

Mr. Speaker, I know that renewing our government's relationship with Indigenous governments is important to all Members. That is why the 19th Legislative Assembly has established settling and implementing treaty, land, resources, and self-government agreements as one of its priorities. We have also made it a priority to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People.

On June 5th each year, we commemorate Inuvialuit Day to celebrate the signing of the Inuvialuit Final Agreement in 1984. In many ways, this agreement led the way for the future negotiation of land...

My understanding from the Chief Public Health Officer report is that it will be with Nunavut. It's not with the Yukon at this time. There will be an announcement next week on it. However, the opening of the borders actually will take a little bit more work. It's not something that you can just do in one day. There will be background work that needs to be done to open up those borders.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There were negotiations going on. There weren't negotiations; there were talks going on. That is the problem with having different tables, Mr. Speaker. I was talking. I brought it forth to the Premiers at our northern Premier meeting. In reality, I hadn't yet spoken to our Chief Public Health Officer. The Chief Public Health Officer has the whole authority over the borders. I'm clear with that; it can't be fettered. I thought we'd start this discussion just by bringing to the Premiers, and then I would bring it to the Chief Public Health Officer. At the same time...

As spoken, we are in the process, ENR is in the process, of reviewing the harvester assistance program to see how we can make that more flexible, but the key thing is that the Indigenous governments did receive federal money. I do not know, Mr. Speaker, how much that was, respectfully. It was given directly to the Indigenous governments. However, my understanding from the department is that the federal government is looking at perhaps supporting more money to the Indigenous governments for COVID-19.

Again, those were conversations at the beginning. I did promise to have feedback from MLAs. Those are the conversations we will be having. I will not make that decision on my own; I don't think it's appropriate. I will be having conversations with our Cabinet, and then I will present to committee, the appropriate committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Those conversations, those are conversations we started, actually, as a Cabinet before COVID-19 hit. We were looking at all of our departments and how they fit, if they needed to be changed, et cetera. It was an idea I put out in my speech, but I also said that I am open to feedback on it. In honesty, Mr. Speaker, due to COVID-19, that kind of got put on the back burner, but I do know that, after this session, once we take a break and give our departments a break because everybody has been going 24/7, we will be starting those conversations again.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That doesn't go across all departments. It really is specified. On that, I would defer the questions to our Minister of Finance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The reason that we had to look at it carefully and, at this point, said "no" is because we have our own enforcement at the borders. There are some liability issues. The municipalities do not have authority to do that. We haven't come down hard on them because we understand the fear that they are facing. We're trying to support them, but we also have to recognize that there are legalities with that. The other major thing that has come with that and the request for funding is that Municipal and Community Affairs has been collecting the debts, the monies, that has been...

Absolutely, any Indigenous governments that need help in any areas, if it's within our powers as the Government of the Northwest Territories, then definitely we would be willing to sit down with them to help them to fill out applications, to understand the processes, to find out where resources are. Call and we will answer.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My understanding is that ENR will be looking at the monies that they give for the harvesting program, the harvesting assistance program, to see what they can do to support it, but there is also other funding that has come in. Indigenous governments were given money through the federal government for COVID-19. Health and Social Services gave money for the At Home on the Land initiative to Indigenous governments. There may be some flexibility within other programs, as well, so there are various streams of monies that are coming for the Indigenous governments. Thank you...