Ronald Bonnetrouge

Some of the largest energy users of fossil fuels are the Northwest Territories Housing Corporation, the Northwest Territories Power Corporation, and Marine Transportation Services. Can the Premier commit to directing the departments to submit energy plans to guide the long-term development of secure, affordable, and sustainable energy for transportation, heat, and electricity?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The cost of living in the Northwest Territories keeps rising year in and year out. Every time the cost of diesel goes up, so does the power bill, skyrocketing costs of groceries, cost to repair appliances, cars, trucks, and all-terrain vehicles.

Mr. Speaker, our message for staycations will come at a cost. There's a document from the 17th Legislative Assembly entitled "A Vision For Energy In The Northwest Territories which states, "There's a great deal of consensus across the Northwest Territories on the need to reduce our high costs of energy and the impacts of our energy...

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. My written question is regarding assessing and managing conflicts of interest in the government. The Code of Conduct Respecting Conflict of Interest and Oath of Office and Secrecy for the Employees of the Government of the Northwest Territories formulates the ethics and values that public servants are expected to follow in their behaviour and describes the consequences of failure to observe the code. In light of the high number of activities Government of the Northwest Territories employees undertake in the voluntary sector, in their communities, in other governance...

Vision from 2020 was founded upon the goal of reducing imported fuels and greater utilization of local and renewable forms of energy. Can the Premier commit to developing a comprehensive biomass strategy that can be utilized by all departments, including NTPC?

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I do notice that former Premiers' photos are in the past energy reports, so my questions are for the Premier even though her photo is not in one yet. The Premier must be aware of the need to get a grip on the escalating cost of living in the territory. Has the Premier provided direction to Cabinet to come up with innovative ways for energy savings to curb the cost of living? Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I support the motion. For far too long, we've had lots of racist overtones happening to our people. It has currently been happening in my community for well over a year at a specific institution that I probably have mentioned many times in the House and within meetings, and it is still continuing to this day. I made a Member's statement on it, and I don't want to have to go through it all. Mr. Speaker, I do support the motion. Mahsi.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Systemic racism is alive and well within our society. It may not be physically prevalent but does hide behind closed doors and closed minds. Systemic racism is an action that is common to a system such as racism in society. As Indigenous people, we face systemic racism on a daily basis. Just the colour of your skin, the fact that you have a treaty number, the community you live in, the crowd that you hang around with, the people who you represent as a leader, those contribute to the harsh realities of systemic racism. This can happen at schools, stores, hockey rinks, even...

Yes. Thank you for that. It's interesting to note that you do have 14 settlement maintainers spread out throughout the territories, and I imagine they are in the smaller communities, not in the larger centres. The larger centres, they carry the operating engineers. They are the ones who deal with all of the heating appliances. I suppose, say you were in a community like a fly-in community, maybe Aklavik; somebody would have to fly in from Inuvik who is an operating engineer or else from Fort McPherson. I don't know if they have one there.

What I am saying is: can we get these settlement...

I think I was asking about the training component. You haven't touched upon that. Like, I made a big speech out of it.

---Laughter

I just wasn't sure what type of work that entailed and if the small contractors can access it. Anyway, I heard talk when I was working with Infrastructure back in 2018-2019 about MTS getting their own maintenance personnel. My question is: did that happen? Mahsi.