Frieda Martselos

Mr. Speaker, would the Minister consider opening a satellite wellness and recovery centre that's related to the one in the capital but situated in a different regional centre in the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to speak again today about the need for more access to aftercare services for people in recovery and for those who are addicted to drugs and alcohol.

Mr. Speaker, assessing mental health and addiction issues in the NWT can be tedious and an intimidating experience for our residents. That was true before the pandemic hit, and it's even harder now for the people to access these vital supports during these uncertain times amidst this pandemic.

As I said in my Member's statement last week, it has been reported and researched by many entities, mental...

So that's what I'm trying to get at, okay. So 12 units at, say, $180,000, yet one unit somewhere else could be a million. You know, so when you're passing a budget without the detail, you can't do that, okay. So, because 12 units is only $180,000 out of all the out of all that's allocated for the retrofits. So we're comparing apples to oranges with each community.

And the other question that I want to ask while I'm at it is who decides which units are going to be retrofit? You know, is it the Housing Corporation, or is it someone else in project management, and how is clarity and who decides...

Well, you know, how could you pass a capital budget with without the detail, especially when we're so compassionate about housing. You know, I have people out of Fort Smith who have been trying since for over a year now, since 2019, since 2020, July, to the same people are still trying to get into public housing and they still haven't got public housing, yet there's 12 units that are that are vacant in Fort Smith. There just seems to be a disconnect in gaps that are not being filled. I'm happy that we have an incredible board that has been put in place now. But the work still has to...

Thank you, Madam Chair. The reporting with resource royalties to Indigenous governments that signed on to devolution is a percentage of the entire royalty that is received by all resource development in the North, and it's per capita to all those who have signed on to devolution. So there is a way of looking at this in a different way, and the Indigenous governments would not be willing to share those kind of that kind of information. It's an agreement between the federal government and Indigenous governments when they signed on to devolution. And maybe that's one of the reasons why this...

I just want to make a short observation on page 8 with number 4.

For the record, I think that the transfer of the records from the Mineral Administration and Registry System to Industry, Tourism and Investment is a good decision. I say that because going through the maze at shared services is sometimes overwhelming, and I think that the NWT should be open for business. We have to be open for business. If we're going to have economic recovery after this pandemic, we have to have an open business policy for business, because anything that trickles down from any of these affects everybody in the...

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us if there are any plans to reduce the width of any other NWT airport runways? If so, can the Minister specify which airports those are. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the other day the Infrastructure Minister was unable to answer a couple of my questions. So I'm going to try asking them again today.

Can the Minister tell us which other NWT airports, by name, were affected by similar actions experienced at the Fort Smith airport runway? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, for the government to continue to defend a poor decision to shorten the width of a major regional airport is not okay. I don't want Fort Smith's decision to set a bad precedent for other communities to lose or lessen vital infrastructure. Would the Minister seriously reconsider correcting this direction by the Government of the Northwest Territories and reinstate the wishes of 550 people along with the entire Fort Smith leadership who signed the runway petition? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in the Infrastructure budget that we looked at the other day, Fort Simpson is replacing the lighting on their airport runway just like what happened to Fort Smith's runway changes. Can the Minister tell us if the width or length of the Fort Simpson airport's runway was altered in any way? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.