Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am not quite clear on the question. What I said in the House last week here, when we talked about the Taltson project, was we are involving the three Indigenous governments that are affected in the region, the Northwest Territories Metis Nation, the Salt River First Nation, and the Akaitcho. I have met with all three of them from their leadership point of view and given them the heads-up about the announcement on this funding. As I have said in the House last week, there seems to be a willingness to work towards supporting this project. That is what this Aboriginal...

As I said, we are putting this thing in as efficiently and as fast as we can. The workforce is contracted out with Little Red River. I will have to see how long that contract is good for and work with the Member to be able to maximize the most employment I can for his particular riding. We have not reduced the capital cost or the budgetary process for putting this road in. We realize the pressure that is on these communities the longer it takes to put in these ice crossings across the Northwest Territories. The Member continually raises it in this Assembly, and we will continually try to work...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will have to get back to the Member on what exact piece of equipment, why we brought it in, and why we brought it there. I do know that we have a labour and equipment contract, an as-and-when one with Tsiigehtchic with Arctic Red River Development Corporation. I can look into that matter, what specific piece of equipment the Member is talking about.

I think that might be a little premature, about doing a SEA. These guys haven't even put a drill in the ground yet, but they are very bullish, as I said, on their project. The department has demonstrated time and time again that we want to focus on getting benefits to residents in the Northwest Territories, to the people working, to small businesses, and getting all benefits we can out of resources from these types of projects. We will be following these guys closely.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I am well aware of the Astro gold project in the Sahtu. They have been doing some work out there. They actually accessed our geodatabase that we have housed in the Northwest Territories geoscience department. In discussions with them, when I was talking to them at roundup, this actually came from a presentation when the Premier and I were at PDAC, and the department laid out a water-till sample that they did in the Sahtu region, and that is where these guys got some actual information to start having a look at that district. Evrim also used our Mining Incentive...

As I have said in my previous comments, not everybody will be happy with everything in this bill, including me. This bill is built on the collaboration and consensus of the people of the Northwest Territories. I support the bill that we are bringing forward. I believe it is the bill at the right time, for the right industry, that we are doing this through the devolution process. This is a bill that people of the Northwest Territories are clearly interested in. As I have said, this is probably one of the biggest and most important ones in this Legislative Assembly. If the Member does not like...

As I mentioned in my statement yesterday and in one of the questions that I answered, I have had discussions with the Akaitcho, which does include Deninu Kue, at the table at that time.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, we can do that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

As we have done a number of technical work and stuff that was done previously in the previous Assemblies on this work, that stuff is going to be part of the updated stuff that we will have to work on. The transmission system is still under study, so it would be premature to speculate what that new cost would be because it's a whole different type of system, as I have said before in this House. We are looking at the first underwater, high-voltage, direct-current line under Great Slave Lake. We are waiting for those costs to still come back, but, once we compile these types of costs, I would be...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to read my notes because this stuff is from all different sources. The funding is coming from two federal sources, with some additional funding from the GNWT. From CanNor we are receiving $480,000, with an additional $120,000 from the Government of the Northwest Territories funding. This is an allocation for technical and commercial work on the project. From CIRNAC we are receiving $619,950. This money will be used to support Indigenous partnership. Funding for technical questions is only sufficient to take us to the end of this fiscal year.