Steve Norn

Thank you, Madam Chair. Committee wishes to consider Tabled Document 12-19(2), 2019-2023 Mandate of the Government of the Northwest Territories.

Thank you for the response, or kind of the lack of it. There was still silence and a lot of radio silence from the ENR Department for this whole development. Going back to the agreement, in my research, I found out that the Indigenous governments largely have observer status. My question to the Minister is: are there any plans to have Indigenous governments play more of an active role moving forward with our transboundary water agreement with Alberta?

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today, I would like to share some remarks regarding the large oil sands mining project known as Teck Frontier, which, as of two days ago, has officially been withdrawn by Teck Resources Limited.

The news of this decision, in my view, is positive. The adverse environmental impacts that this project would have brought to our territory would have been felt for generations. We here in the NWT have always been feeling the impacts of the oil sands development for many years already. We have seen the impacts it had on our waterways, our interconnected lakes and rivers that flow...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Continuing on, if we truly support independent living for all elders, then let's show it. Let's start making our elders' homes more accessible for things like wheelchairs, for the walk to the bathroom, to make it more friendly to use and easy to use. If there is bureaucratic red tape for preventing this from moving forward, well, it's time to start cutting some of the red tape and allow the elders to receive the best service available to meet their needs. Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker.

Mahsi cho, Madam Chair. I would like to move that the chair rise and report progress.

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. Today, I want to talk about elders aging in place with dignity. I know I sound a little bit like a broken record, but I'm going to keep on with this. I spoke about this issue last night and last week, but I want to take this opportunity to touch on the issue of mobility problems not being addressed for elders.

One of our 22 mandate items is to enable seniors to age in place with dignity. The treatment I have seen from this government toward our elders is unacceptable and undignified. I sincerely hope that all of our government departments start treating elders to a much...

Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. As a new Member of this House, I have a steep learning curve, and I know a few of our other Members do, as well, mainly in regards to the budgeting process of the GNWT. One area in particular that stands out is our Assembly's usage of supplementary budget appropriations. Now, this terminology is just fancy language to mean additional government funds being allocated to certain departments due to unforeseen circumstances or unforeseen expenses that were not anticipated during the original development process, or new federal funding which was not previously included.

Mr...

I would like to rise and report progress.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I want to say that I was really pleased about the amending of the policy to the NWT Housing Corporation to allow appropriate home business opportunities with their units. I mentioned during our roundtable before we were assigned our portfolios that we have to help those single parents out there. This is a perfect one. I talked a little bit about humanizing our policies. This is it here. This made me really happy. I am glad that we are moving in that direction, and hopefully we see more of that from the department of housing and the department of health, but that's...

Mahsi cho, Madam Chair. It sounds like, earlier, you got another promotion there. I really like this mandate item, as well. I really got a good sense of it when we sat around our roundtable in October with all the regions. That was so powerful, just hearing them. What really surprised me was they were telling us that they had never met with us in that forum before. It blew me away. I think that needs to happen more, that collaboration. We need to work with each other. For too long, I think there was that division between the GNWT and the regions. I feel like the regions felt ignored. We are...