Kevin O'Reilly

Merci, Monsieur le President. My question is for the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. GNWT progress on Thaidene Nene seems to have stalled. Meanwhile, on the federal side, Thaidene Nene staff have been going great guns, hiring monitors and a tourism coordinator, first-ever sport fishing system with Parks Canada. These are all welcome events. Then, of course, there was the signing of the agreement between the federal government and Yellowknives Dene First Nation on September 25th. Can the Minister explain why there are still no regulations for the establishment of the GNWT portion...

Merci, Monsieur le President. This gets to one of the main points I want to make here is that there is a real scarcity of information on the so-called protected areas public registry. If we're recruiting somebody to sit as a public member, where is the public notice about it? I'll give the Minister another example: he extended the land withdrawal for the Dinaga Wek'ehodi protected area recently. That's not in the public registry, either. There's going to be a lot of correspondence from the management boards. That should be on the public registry. Can the Minister tell us when we can expect to...

Merci, Monsieur le President. WHEREAS Referral of Tabled Documents 165-19(2): Government of the Northwest Territories Response to Committee Report 1-19(2): Report on Long-Term Post-Pandemic Recovery - Recommendations to the GNWT; 166-19(2): Government of the Northwest Territories Response to Committee Report 2-19(2): Report on Long-Term Post-Pandemic Recovery - Recommendations to the GNWT and TD 167-19(2): Government of the Northwest Territories Response to Committee Report 3-19(2): Report on Long-Term Post-Pandemic Recovery - Recommendations to the GNWT have been tabled in this House;

AND...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that information. It's clear that the GNWT has not done enough to stop public environmental liabilities in a systematic way. We have no early warning system despite commitments to do so in the last Assembly. We have Ekati Mine teetering and nothing in the mandate letter for this Minister to finally put in place a preventative approach to public environmental liabilities. Can the Minister tell us exactly what he intends to accomplish in this Assembly to prevent further public environmental liabilities, like Strategic Oil and Gas...

I want to thank the Minister for that information. It's good news that some work is finally done to close the Cameron Hills field, maybe by receiver, but ultimately, it's going to come back to us. There is no way the money that is set aside is going to be able to cover all this. Can the Minister tell us how much money we actually can access in the various forms of available security for the remediation of the property and how much is left before we have to ask taxpayers to cough up more?

Merci, Monsieur le President. I made my last statement on the Cameron Hills sour gas field in this House on February 26, 2020. GNWT accepted this property under devolution even though there was no approved closure plan and financial security of only $2.9 million. Furthermore, GNWT never requested a revision in financial security or used other tools at its disposal to prevent this disaster. When I raised these matters with the current Minister of Lands, he could not provide any reason as to why GNWT accepted this site under the devolution agreement or why GNWT did not exercise all of its...

Thanks, Madam Chair. I have a number of comments that are similar to what my colleague before just mentioned. This is the largest ever capital project at $451 million. I don't think it's quite correct to say that, anyway, there is a relationship between what we spend in O and M and what we spend on capital. It's something called the Fiscal Responsibility Policy that requires an operating surplus on our O and M side. Programs and services, we have to have money left over from that to allow us to spend up to 50 percent of that on capital projects, so there is a relationship. Quite frankly, I...

Merci, Monsieur le President. I wish to table the following document: "NWT Resource Production 1999 to 2019." Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

I am trying to do a quick math on my feet here. It looks like we've got about $1 million left to do a lot more work. GNWT accepted the Cameron Hills site without an approved closure plan and without full financial security being posted. That should never have happened. We didn't use all the tools available to us to stop it from becoming a public liability either. Having seen some of the inspections reports, there's still a lot more work to be done properly to close and remediate this property. Can the Minister tell us whether there is a plan yet for the closure and remediation of the site and...

Merci, Monsieur le President. Earlier today, I recounted the ongoing saga of how our government allowed the Cameron Hills sour gas field to become a public liability. Can the Minister of Lands tell us what general work has been done to date at the site by our government and how much it has cost? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.