Katrina Nokleby

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have raised my concern in this House many times about the lack of longterm vision and planning when it comes to the North's critical infrastructure projects and, specifically, I am concerned about the planning and implementation of Fort Simpson's power.

The village's current diesel power plant sits on the bank of the Mackenzie River, directly in the high-risk flood zone. The land adjacent to this critical piece of infrastructure is washing away, undermined by the scouring action of the river. If another flooding event occurs, there could be severe...

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I apologize if this has already been asked. Just in the conservation planning piece, and noting that we are seeing money kind of returning but I'm assuming, again, probably the 20212022 had to do with COVID, are we looking to create newer or more protected areas? Is that what this work is being done for? Are we looking to see new parks coming in the future such as Thaidene Nene? Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Just my colleague's questions prompted another question for me. As part of that fur forum, are artisans and artists involved in this discussion, or is it just solely trappers and hunters? Thank you.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, and I really do appreciate that, and I obviously need to get my hands on the latest traditional knowledge report and see so that I can speak better to it.

I guess I do want to come back a little bit to the spill that did occur in Alberta that we weren't notified about. Is there a mechanism in place I guess, first of all, was the spill reported through their own mechanisms that we have such as the 24hour spill report line? So were they following the regulatory process and if so, is there some way that someone in our department or our government is checking that, or do...

Thank you. So just to make sure that I understand it correctly it's been a long few weeks. So then that means that in the next estimates we sort of start to see the ops pieces pulled out of these specific sort of wildlife forest management, for example, and moved into the regional operations so that it will become more of a fulsome look? And I see everybody nodding their heads so I'm going to say take that as a yes and not go back to them and ask my next question, which is around some of these pieces, like the traditional knowledge funding, the water strategy action plan, etcetera, in the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I think it's worth clarifying that if this bill is not introduced that all Members in this House will get a cost of living increase that is the current CPI, which is over 6 percent. What this bill does is actually reduces the amount of money that MLAs would get as a raise come April 1st by smoothing it out using that CPI fiveyear average. Why I think that it's important to make this designation is that we as MLAs are not actually changing what our remuneration is at this point. What we're doing is actually proposing a change that minimizes that cost of...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm going to have to go on the round for a second set of questions because I have a lot here.

So my question my last question will be on is the plan or sorry, first of all, I'm concerned that this design and cost estimate hasn't already been done since it's been about a year since we knew that this supplemental plant was not going to be large enough. Therefore, what is the Minister planning to do this flooding season when the road next to the diesel plant is undermined? Is there an emergency plan or some sort of safety plan in place should the undermining of the river...

Thank you. I'm just going to reach a little bit further and ask then, in a normal process like this, does the federal government kick in extra money for such an important sort of nation building and critical mineral project? Do we anticipate that perhaps there would be federal funding that would be coming towards us given that it is quite important to Canada's critical mineral strategy. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I guess then from hearing that, it doesn't sound like there's any plans to do anything with the plant on the island but rather to look at the new location where the LNG plant was proposed. It's my understanding that the original LNG plant proposed was only supplemental but now needs to be a full plant to populate sorry, to power Simpson. So what is the cost for that entire LNG plant that would be needed to power the entire village? Thank you.

Thank you. And perhaps I should have just done one of those. They all seem to be nodding so I think I'm right in that one. So, again, I'll just reiterate what my colleague said around more money in this area would be great. I know we have lots of conversations going on between committee and Cabinet around this. But, yes, anything where we can put more money into the hands of people to go out and be on the land in whatever form or shape they want to be, I think that's great. So more of a comment. Thank you, Madam Chair.