Kevin O'Reilly

Yeah, thanks, Madam Chair. I kind of feel like I should be a zombie and I'm going to come back and continue to hammer on this one because this should never have happened in the first place. It's not needed. It doesn't do any work. And it's not a comanagement approach. It just doesn't fit with the way that we do other comanagement here in the Northwest Territories. I don't know what else I can say, Madam Chair. This needs to be reviewed. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, on page 17, I guess there was quite a anyway, back in 20212022, actuals were about $1.4 million and 20232024, it's around well, 545. What happened in 20212022? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Yeah, thanks. I don't want to get into a debate here but we're not fully secured on some of these sites. You know, Prairie Creek being an example. We don't hold full financial security because a crazy arrangement that the federal government got into with the company and that it still hasn't been sorted out as far as I know.

All right, I'll ask a more pointed question. Reclaim is a model. It's almost like proprietary developed by some consultants but it's a methodology of calculating reclamation liability based on a whole bunch of rather complicated spreadsheets, unit costs, and so on. That hasn...

Great, thanks, Madam Chair. I appreciate that level of detail. And I support the department getting the expertise that's necessary to do this work, and I know you got you went out for two RFPs. I think you got another one out there now, so that's good. Is any of this stuff public, and where would you find it? Do we publish, or do we make any of this information, these peer reviews that we're doing, is any of this stuff available for people here to see what's going on? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. These folks haven't dealt with a dispute their entire existence, and this was never really needed. This could have been handled through the existing dispute resolution mechanisms and with the land rights agreements. Look, this is not a comanagement approach. The Minister appoints everybody here. I think the Indigenous governments don't get a say in this. This is ancient legislation that we inherited from the federal government. We've reviewed a good part of the other resource management legislation that we have in place. When is the Minister going to review this...

Okay, thanks. And so if this was reduced to the 3.02 percent, it would be, I don't know, probably $150,000; is that a correct ballpark figure? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Well, I didn't expect such a short answer. Okay, great. I don't think I have anything further. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I want to thank my colleague from Hay River South for asking a number of the questions I was going to ask, and I want to thank the Minister for pointing out to the premier of Alberta that we signed a transboundary agreement with their government, not Imperial Oil. So maybe educating the minister when you're meeting with her tomorrow, getting the premier to actually read the transboundary agreement might be helpful.

But I guess I want to get some assurance that there's if we enter into this dispute resolution process, that if there is like an independent third party review...

Thanks, Madam Chair. Can I assume, then, that we've actually got the money in the bank for this? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thanks, Madam Chair. So on page 9, the compensation and benefits is increasing by about, it looks like almost $600,000. Can I have someone explain to me what that increase consists of? Thanks.