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Statements in Debates

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 97)

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I've been waiting with baited breath for two years for this plan so I can really hardly wait.

The recently released meeting summaries show that a panterritorial study on northern mineral resource investment has been given to the Chamber of Mines before it was even publicly released. Can the Minister explain why this privileged access by the mining industry to publiclyfunded studies continues, and what is going to be done to ensure other stakeholders have access to this sort of information and input going forward? Mahsi, Mr...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 97)

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. The new summaries kept of these ITIChamber of Mines Engagement Group meetings, they continue almost no details as to what's actually discussed. Several times an item is listed as a topic with no detail following. Can the Minister tell us what is going on in these meetings and why the meeting summaries are remarkably short and lacking in detail? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 97)

Merci, Monsieur le President. In June and December 2021, I made statements, asked questions, and tabled redacted summaries of the secret meetings of the GNWTChamber of Mines COVID recovery working group. As a result of my fifth access to information request on these secret meetings, I am pleased to report that this group has now changed its name and has a public terms of reference.

Furthermore, very short summaries of these ITI/NWT and Nunavut Chamber of Mines Engagement Group meetings are now posted on the Chamber of Mines website. None of this was publicly announced, as far as I can tell, and...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 96)

Yeah, okay, thanks, Mr. Chair, and thanks for that. If I could get the detailed list with absolute numbers beside it, that would be great.

I just want to know whether also whether any of that funding is actually for habitat protection, which has not happened during my six years here, really, and is the one part of caribou management that is yet to be addressed. Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 96)

Merci, Madam la Presidente. On January 25th of this year, there was another announcement about funding for 29 houses being built in small communities. That’s all good but it got me thinking about that federal coinvestment carve out for $60 million that was set aside for the NWT.

After the last Cabinet failed to make housing a priority, we got very little under the National Housing Strategy, but that’s another story.

Recently I got an accounting of the funds spent and used under the NWT coinvestment carve out. $25.5 million of this amount was allocated to the NWT Housing Corp to assist with the...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 96)

Thanks, Mr. Chair. Nice try by my colleagues. I move that this committee defer further consideration of the estimates for the department of Environment and Natural Resources at this time. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 96)

Thanks, Mr. Chair. So in the Minister's opening remarks, he said that there's an extra $1.03 million for work on the Bathurst and Bluenose East caribou herds. I don't want the Minister to tell me right now, but I want an itemized list of what this money's actually for. So can the Minister commit to provide that and actually make it public? Thanks, Mr. Chair.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 96)

Thanks. No further questions. But I do want to thank them for getting on this. It's been a longstanding issue for Yellowknifers. Thank you.

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 96)

Thanks, Mr. Chair. While I appreciate the opportunity to get a technical update but I'm going to be asking the Minister questions before the end of this sitting on this matter because the public deserves to know whether the provincial government is going to allow us to sit on this committee or not. So that's a heads up to the Minister that I'm going to be asking for answers in public about this.

I want to move on, though, to a couple of other areas here if I can, Mr. Chair.

I believe this is the part of the ENR budget where inspections for water licenses are conducted, and if I've got that...

Debates of , 19th Assembly, 2nd Session (day 96)

Okay, thanks for that. Yeah, I can tell the Minister that I visited Greenland about maybe six, eight years ago, and in Greenland in the capital Nuuk, they had machines that you could just put an empty bottle into and cash came out at the bottom. So if they can do it in Greenland, I don't know why we can't do it here. Like, was and that was, like, a number of years ago. So I'm is that the kind of remote technology or something we're talking about here? Like, this isn't rocket science. It's done all over Europe. But is that the kind of thing we're talking about? Thanks, Mr. Chair.