Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister. Of course, I still haven't heard him say the word "crisis" or "emergency" in relation to climate change. But the Auditor General raised the failure of two previous GNWT strategies to reach their greenhouse gas reduction targets, and the current one would also fail without the closure of the Diavik mine. Can the Minister tell us whether GNWT will actually embrace net zero as a target and when we might expect to reach that? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. So through the work of the committee, with the departmental staff and the technical working group, we did make some progress on the issue of what information should be made public because the bill was totally silent on this which was, really, I guess kind of surprising given that this issue was raised in the last Assembly with regard to Bill 44. It was also raised during the public engagement by the department earlier in this year. It was raised in written submissions to the committee as well. So we did make some progress. What we have here is a relatively short list...

Yeah, thanks. I appreciate those comments. I guess what I was hoping to hear is probably a little bit more in line with what the standing committee report talks about in terms of things like don't wait until the very end before you carry out your public engagement; find ways to share information while you're working through different parts of a bill or issues. I don't think there's anything that would, you know, prevent I hope, ways of sharing more information as the bill's being developed and starting some of the public engagement earlier on it to get input on specific areas or issues moving...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for clarifying that. He's just got it on the record that this Cabinet is not going to be making a decision about this independent review and that it's not going to happen during the election. That's good. It's going to be a decision made by the next Assembly. But I'm certainly grappling with who and how this review should be carried out. Personally, I don't think that MLAs, whether Regular MLAs or Cabinet, should probably be leading this review. It needs to be independent third party, so. And they have to have access to the resources...

Yeah, I think that's a big mistake, quite frankly, and I've said that before in this House, and I hope that future governments will listen to this as well. This government cannot have it both ways. You cannot trigger an EA for the Slave Geological Province or Lockhart allseason road while it's in a regional study. What's the point of doing a regional study? Tlicho government, others have asked for the regional study so that we don't make irrevocable mistakes so why trigger an EA while the regional study's going on? That would be just ridiculous and, quite frankly, contrary to good project...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I'm a bit alarmed at what I'm hearing. It sounds like there's going to be contracted socalled independent reviews. That's not what we've been talking about here. So there are a number of options, though, for an independent review of fire and emergency management. These include could include a public inquiry with a very formal legal process, a joint special committee with Regular MLAs, Cabinet, and perhaps others involved, or an independent group or task force with an agreed upon terms of reference that could include input from Regular MLAs and maybe even the...

Okay, thanks. I think I knew that but how much are we spending of our own money then in 20242025 on SGP work? Thank you.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister. The current Archives Act places the burden on the territorial archivist for the safekeeping of our documentary heritage. There's a lot of that's a lot of responsibility on one person who clearly doesn't have the resources to carry out this important work. That would be a stretch for anyone to conclude that GNWT is taking proper care of our archival records.

Can the Minister tell us whether there has been any advice received on whether the GNWT is in compliance with the Archives Act, and can he share that with us? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

No, thanks, Madam Chair. I thank the Minister for that. And, of course, since we've got only about a week left if I could get it before then, that would be helpful. Thank you.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I'm excited about a new archives building, and I can hardly wait for the opening. The Archives Act, though, appears to have not gone through any kind of substantive review in over 40 years. To say it is outdated and does not establish a proper framework for archival heritage would be an understatement. Can the Minister explain why the Archives Act has not been updated and whether there are any plans to do so? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.