Katrina Nokleby

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, flooding in the territory continues to be a real threat to residents' homes, livelihoods, and critical infrastructure in the Northwest Territories communities. In March, I spoke about the need to relocate and upgrade the Fort Simpson diesel plant to a liquified natural gas, or LNG, project, and the government's general lack of vision and longterm planning regarding infrastructure. Two weeks ago, the Peel River flooded in Fort McPherson, cutting off roadways, access to the airport, and water and sewer services. In other words, Mr. Speaker, the community's...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm looking at the actually the community access road improvement, the regional, there's a million dollars being carried over there. I do understand that that one is hard to always budget for because of, you know, if a community doesn't follow through on what they had proposed it may not get spent. Is that million dollars earmarked already for projects, so is it being carried over to a specific community project, or will it be put back into the fund for application again? And I guess I'm just wondering where does that million end up going. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And it's my understanding that this project will also be subject to the Tlicho Agreement that the Minister was referring to earlier in the tourism section. And I'm just curious to know, given that that has delayed other projects in the past, what's being done to ensure that the Frank Channel doesn't have that same issue given - at the Frank Channel Bridge given that it is such a critical piece of infrastructure to our region and to the territory as a whole?

Also, I note that it is my understanding that most of the projects that are being done under this agreement are...

Thank you, Madam Chair. When speaking about a department being overtaxed, I in no way implied that the people working in that department are not working hard. My point being that there has been numerous unplannedfor disasters over the last several years, and this is the smallest department. In the Minister's words himself, in an email, has told me that his staff could not did not have the capacity to deal with the flooding that happened in Fort Simpson so I would assume that, given the flooding that happened the year after in Hay River and now forest fires, that that would continue on.

When...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I just wanted to ask a little bit about the suicide prevention strategies funding and just can the Minister confirm that this was the money that came out of the negotiations of Regular Members? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In the Rules of Debate, 3.2 (3)(h) states that you cannot make allegations against another Member, a House officer, a witness or a member of the public, or impute false or hidden motives to another Member; or, (k) use abusive or insulting language of a nature likely to create disorder. I believe that in the Premier's response to me, she did these things. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Then the Premier is not aware or did not watch our meeting with the IRC in which we discussed this on the social development committee, which was a public meeting, and I would have hoped that her staff and staff at Justice had been listening. It was clear to us in that meeting that the IRC was very unhappy about what was going on but I don't want to make that my question.

The Premier's mandate includes leading efforts to ensure voices in all regions are heard in decisionmaking but five of 15 were Indigenous governments and organizations have not signed on to the GNWT's...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In March, the government introduced legislation to implement the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. The declaration sets minimum standards to protect the rights of Indigenous peoples and to contribute to their survival, dignity, and wellbeing. The government says it wants to affirm the declaration as a universal human rights instrument that applies in the Northwest Territories.

Mr. Speaker, there truly isn't more important work for this government to do but I question this government's commitment to truly implementing the declaration. Recent...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'm not sure that that totally answered my question. I get that there's a balance. However, the fishers themselves have been asking for an increased payment for their fish. So I'm not sure how that then gets developed with cooperation of the Tu Cho themselves if the Tu Cho is telling me something different. Talking about subsidies and training and funding is great, but when we have an entire summer this summer where the fishers, there's is only a dozen or so of them, make no money, we won't attract new people here, we can't afford even one season of more fishers leaving...

Thank you. Why are we still the only ones in this arrangement that basically indentures our fishers to, you know, not paying them what their fish is worth? Thank you.