Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As the Member is well aware, when we were down at Roundup this actually came up in one of my meetings, or several of my meetings, if we were going to have a look at this thing. So this is something we've considered since we got back from Mineral Roundup and this is early days in how we're going to do this. Like I said, this is a big one for the Department of ITI moving forward and, again, we'll be engaging committee as we move forward and get their input on how we should be developing some of these items. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. That's why we had the initiative that's put in place in this 2020 going forward was the community regional coordinator position that each community can apply on. They can do it by themselves, or a couple of communities can get together to pull it together, but the main intent of that is bringing that initiative forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, this is correct. We are doing it inhouse. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There was no reduction as such. We just moved them to other expenses. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This initiative was brought forward just based on the success of tourism specifically in the North Slave of the number of tourism operators and licensees that are approaching the Government of the Northwest Territories to get licences up. The uptake has been significant, and we need to increase our staff on the ground to deal with this. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. The purpose of this fund, according to the act, is:

"To finance environmental and social studies pertaining to the manner in which the terms and conditions under which exploration and development production and activities on petroleum lands authorized under the act or any other action to be conducted."

They reach out, they get the levies based on industry participation, and this is where the money comes from. They do a call for proposals. I believe the last one they've done as of late was on the caribou issue, Boreal Caribou Initiatives and Groundwater Monitoring in...

As we move forward with the new socio-economic agreements with up-and-coming mining companies, some of this conversation is already taking place with the potential new mines that are in place and negotiations are under way. As for the Member's comments of having a full review, I'm not committed to doing that just yet. We have to get our mine regulations and stuff in place, as devolution has come upon us and we have to work on how we're going to make our House better; once that sort of stuff is in place, then we can have a better look at it.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I believe we're already doing that on a number of sectors, but we'll make sure that anything that Member is referring to is included as well. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. As I've said, we are just starting the early days of working on the geothermal energy status in the Northwest Territories. As we move forward and get a little more information on how we're going to move this forward and along with legislation, I'm sure we're going to have to look at how we're going to acquire some funding and how we can move this initiative forward as a possible development in future economic development in the Northwest Territories that benefits all residents.

This is early days, so I suspect at some point, no different than our energy strategy, there's...

-- $8,192,000. Thank you, Mr. Chair.