Robert C. McLeod

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following four documents entitled "Interim Financial Statements of the Government of the Northwest Territories for the Year Ended March 31, 2016," "Inter-Activity Transfers Exceeding $250,000 for the Period April 1 to June 30, 2016," "Inter-Activity Transfers Exceeding $250,000 for the Period April 1 to September 30, 2016," and "Follow-up Letter to Oral Question 383-18(2): Remediation of Arsenic Contamination Near Giant Mine Site." Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I always have an opinion. We will continue to work with these groups to see if there's resources that might be made available to them. ENR staff actually attended the National Indigenous Guardianship Program in Ottawa in early October and the purpose of the gathering was to highlight the knowledge of the Indigenous Guardian Approach to the protection and management of lands and waters and as with most of our trips to Ottawa, there was some discussion on funding. I'm not sure the nature of those discussions or the outcome of those discussions yet, but as we continue to move on with...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am aware of these programs and we're actually proud of the fact that in the Northwest Territories we do have a couple of Indigenous Guardianship Programs. The Ni Hat'ni Dene or Watchers of Land and the Deh Cho KOD which means taking care of Dehcho, and we've seen how these programs actually benefit the community, they generate some good-paying jobs, they prepare young people to be our next generation leaders, but the guardianship program, my understanding, do even more because they are guardians of the land monitoring wildlife, tracking changes to...

Mr. Speaker, I'm not a lawyer, but I do understand a bit how this works and I'm starting to understand it a bit more. My understanding is that if any of the parties feel that procedural fairness was not met, they could possibly go through the court system. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the land and water board has their process, and they review items brought before them, and then they are brought over to ENR for a decision by the Minister. So, whatever process they use, if they believe it's a fair process then they operate under that process as we operate under ours. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I spoke before about the success that we've had with the couple of programs that are operating in the NWT and also the success of the program that's operating in Australia, and we support the idea of bringing Indigenous Guardianship Programs to more communities across the NWT. Again, if it's a question of funding then we will work with our federal counterparts because we can see some benefit to the rest of the country if we have these particular types of programs across the country.

So I will make that commitment that we will work with our federal counterparts and through our own...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Yellowknife South that Bill 14, Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), 2017-2018 be read for the third time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I request a recorded vote.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Hay River South, that Bill 14, Appropriation Act (Infrastructure Expenditures), 2017-2018 be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

In the future, all reporting will be linked to SAM, which is our financial management system. So departments won't be maintaining separate systems.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, these were raised after some consultation, and we'd heard from the business community that because these hadn't been raised in 20 years, they thought it was time to raise them. The value that it brings to residents is that they will be able to then go out and secure some services right away without going going out for RFP, because that takes up a lot of time and money for $5,000. So this was made at the request of the business community and in consideration of the cost to administer small contracts. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.