Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As you may know, Kakisa is one of the communities serviced by Northland Utilities. We do, however, have Kakisa in particular on our radar. One exciting potential project is the Fort Providence to Kakisa transmission line to connect diesel communities to the Taltson Renewable Hydro Project, and this proposed project is detailed in our draft energy strategy that is coming out. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Member knows he is asking a question that can't be answered. How can we know what we are losing out on if we don't know what the royalty regime will be in the future? We know that, as an interim, the mines will continue to provide jobs for residents in the Northwest Territories, business opportunities. They will continue to pay their fees and maintain their mineral tender, pay their land, tenure fees, royalties, property taxes, payroll taxes, and corporate taxes, as well as abiding by the socio-economic agreements and the IDAs that they have signed into.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We have moved into the legislative drafting process on the MRA, Mineral Resources Act. What we heard during the public engagement along with consideration of other key elements, the resulting of the scoping exercise across jurisdictional review on policy research, that is what we take now. It is going to guide us to help us develop the Mineral Resource Act. Because that specifically may not have been in the "what we heard" report doesn't mean we haven't taken those things into consideration.

Our policy rationale for the proposed act will be provided to standing committee...

The 2030 Energy Strategy that we will be tabling, in fact, revolves around community needs. I think five out of the six points that we have in there are around communities and supporting communities and community residents, and the Government of the Northwest Territories, as well as the Arctic Energy Alliance, are in line to well support communities when it comes to sustainable energy solutions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

We have a slate of potential energy solutions for communities across the Northwest Territories, including wind, solar, LNG, mini hydro. This will depend on the local energy resources potential of each community.

Under the 2030 Energy Strategy, we are committed to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from diesel communities by 25 per cent by 2030. Community energy plans are wellsuited for communityowned energy efficiency and renewable heating solutions, and under the energy strategy we are committed to supporting energy planning for communities that take this initiative.

As I stated in the House yesterday, we are not prepared to do that in the life of this Assembly. In our discussions with the Intergovernmental Council, we have made the decision to park this review of royalties moving forward until such time as the MRA is done and we will continue to move towards that. When we do come forward with the mineral resource royalties review, I can assure this House that we will have meaningful participation no different than what we have done on the MRA. We will have reached out to all the regions, all the stakeholders, all the residents of the Northwest Territories...

The public engagement plan was provided to standing committee and stated that the second round of engagement could occur based on the expression of interest of community and feedback that we have. In fact, this is already happening. We have already met with the Chamber of Mines. We have received the request to meet with Alternatives North and expect to meet with them also moving forward. We will also continue to meet with the Intergovernmental Council going forward with the drafting process.

Mr. Speaker, our government has committed in the mandate to diversify the economy to create greater opportunities for our residents. Our investment in the agricultural sector is part of this important work, and we continue to make progress on this commitment.

Mr. Speaker, today is Canada’s Agriculture Day. It is a day established to increase awareness for, and encourage the relationship between, food consumers and food producers; a relationship that we, as a government, are growing in our territory in support of our mandate to increase economic development and diversification and stabilize the...

The Member has his own take on how we're moving this forward. As I've said, the mining industry is the biggest part of our economy. We will continue to support it on this side of the House. Some Members on that side maybe don't clearly want to support it, but we do. Our approach is, we need to support the sector that contributes the largest part of our economy. We will continue to do that, and working with the intergovernmental council moving forward, along with Members of this Assembly and the public, we will move these things as a time as needed. We are working on a Mineral Resource Act at...

If I had a crystal ball, I would let the Member know the exact date, but I suspect it will be in the next Assembly.