Frieda Martselos

Mr. Speaker, can the Premier tell us if the Government of the Northwest Territories is prepared to prioritize the selfgovernment and land claim agreement with the NWT Metis Nation? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as a Member for Thebacha, the majority of my constituents are part of the NWT Metis Nation. As one of their representatives in this Assembly, I consider the advancement of their priorities as part of my priorities.

Mr. Speaker, on May 19th, 2021, the NWT Metis Nation, along with the Government of Canada and the Government of the Northwest Territories, signed a selfgovernment negotiation framework agreement to help advance land claim negotiations for the NWT Metis Nation.

This framework agreement will help guide negotiations in order to reach a final...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, during this session, and all throughout this term for that matter, I've talked about the economy and about the need for our government to put greater emphasis on the economic recovery for the people of the NWT.

Mr. Speaker, when I talk about the economy and economic recovery from the effects of the pandemic I you refer to the economy as a whole, to all sectors, to large and small businesses alike within the NWT. We cannot focus on any single industry alone. We must consider the big picture and envision the longterm goals of what we want to achieve overall...

Well I beg to differ, Mr. Chair. Once you have an outside group owning land here in the territories, they have a right to section 35 and that means in any jurisdiction. That section 35 comes into play even if you want to open a mine and if they decide that they don't want to do that or they want to have IBAs for that or if they want to have ownership, they have that right just like any other Indigenous group in the territory, and I don't know if that has been conveyed to all the leadership in the Northwest Territories.

And when I stand here, that means it doesn't only affect Indigenous people...

On page 23, Mr. Chair, the two agreements that have been concluded are two final transboundary agreements. Are there going to be consultation with Indigenous governments within the jurisdiction of the Northwest Territories before these are ratified?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm just going to make a couple comments. I just one of the comments that my one of my colleagues said about Indigenous governments.

Indigenous governments always facilitate that they always want to have control of the funds for housing. It goes back, like, 17 years now, and every time there was allocations of $59 million to the federal to the territorial government, it was just another roadblock for them to actually do to actually control the funds and do the work. So saying that because I know that's the way it was every time we met as a group.

I also want to just...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I too want to just express my appreciation I guess in the working relationship that I developed with Cabinet, and especially the Premier and the Minister of Health, and everyone. There has been times there will be times when we don't agree but we have to leave that at the door. And I think that the working relationship that I established with Cabinet is a good one. And some of the Ministers are more open than others, and that's always the case anyways in any political democracy.

I really would stress, though, that we are a consensus government, and many times I feel that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will be voting against this Supplementary Estimate (Operations Expenditures), No. 3, 20212022.

Mr. Speaker, for our government to not continue supporting small airlines during an extremely volatile financial situation is not okay. During the pandemic, we provided financial aid to businesses to help them stay afloat and not go out of business. But for many of these businesses, they are not out of the woods yet. Many of them are still struggling to get back on their feet to try and level out again. Most businesses have gone further and further into debt during this...

In favour.

Opposed.