Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Compliance and Enforcement Branch is actually there to enforce the orders of the Chief Public Health Officer. A lot of that is, like the Member said, around public education. Some are verbal warnings. Some are written warnings. The last would be a fine. That is the purpose of the Compliance and Enforcement Branch. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The assumption is that this is a new policy, and, actually, it's not. It's always been in there that, if you are looking for a liquor licence, if you are looking for a liquor permit, that you need to have both. The reality is that my opinion is that we were a little bit lenient with lodges before. We did a review of the Fire Prevention Act, and then it really did confirm that all remote fishing lodges are subject to the building code. It just happened that this lodge was one of the first ones after that review, so it's not that we want to penalize. We want to help them, but we also have to...

Yesterday, I talked about being called names in here, some I don't accept and other ones I would accept. I haven't heard my name again being called as "easy." Talking about building relationships with the federal government is something that we are focusing on, positive relationships with them. It has proved to be fruitious. The other thing I am doing is also talking already about, and most Premiers are talking about, "What are we doing now?" We are starting to look at a recovery; but I have been talking about that since the beginning.

Every time we give something, like, for example, when we...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will say that the Member has to be careful when she goes home to her riding. She might have offended a previous Minister who would say that every government in the Northwest Territories has lobbied hard to the federal government for additional money for the Northwest Territories, and I carry that forward. The reality is that every Assembly has asked for additional monies, and not only ourselves. We tend to partner as the three territories, with Nunavut and Yukon Territory, because we are all in the same situation.

Every government that I have known and that I have...

Yes, my understanding is that definitely everyone is asked for their identification. It does not matter if you are driving or riding. However, there is an issue with some things. People are coming up and, from what I have heard, it's not only across the highways or in our airplanes; it's coming from water. Those are things that we are looking at, as well. The bad thing about COVID-19 is what's happening. The good thing about COVID-19 is we are having more checks at the borders, and so we are more conscious of illegal trades that are happening at our borders.

The reason we have seven Members on Cabinet is because there is value in having many voices. I do appreciate. My first question was, "Can we do this?" and it was, "Yes, we can meet." Then, a wise Minister said to me, "That's why we have a committee of Cabinet for COVID-19, our social issues committee." What we will do, then, is bring that to our COVID-19, our committee, to address that issue, but we will be talking about it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The big difference is that the public health officers who are doing the compliance and the enforcement are not RCMP officers. They come with a different set of skills. All along, we've said that, if there were huge parties and people were breaking orders, disturbances and stuff, we would not put our public health officers at risk within that. That is the job of the RCMP. I do think that sometimes our public is getting confused. They tend to phone us. What I have to say is that we have almost, I believe it was, 800 inquiries or calls in to Protect NWT. Every single one of them gets followed up...

I think it's important as elected officials to actually take ownership when things aren't too good, so I will take ownership on this one in that some of the delay over the couple of months was on our behalf, on the department's behalf, because COVID-19 hit us, and we were scrambling. All government departments were told, "You are now working from home," and we had to figure out what that looked like, so I do take ownership for some of that delay. That is our fault, and there is not much we can do about that. We are trying to work with them.

How I am going to fix it, though, is that we have...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It is not about because the only thing that changed was Lutselk'e Dene band, because I didn't even know that was the owner or not or whoever it is. The reality, Mr. Speaker, is that there was a change in ownership, and, with the change in ownership, they are looking for a liquor permit. If you are looking for a liquor permit, it's a little bit more difficult. You have to have not only a business licence but an occupancy permit, and then the fire marshal has to go in and do an inspection, so that is the difference. It's not only the owner; it's the request for a liquor...

How quickly they learn to be politicians. They know that there's an election coming up for the federal government. Actually, I have to say, in fairness to the Prime Minister, the Prime Minister has recognized, not only in this government, in the last Assembly, as well, that the territories are at a deficit. They have always given us extra money.

For example, for this Assembly, since COVID-19, I believe we got just over $23 million for the GNWT for our own COVID-19 expenses. We got $8.7 million for airlines. We got $35 million for businesses, and my understanding is that more will be coming...