Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a conservative estimate going forward. The revised estimates clearly show the work that was taken on last year. We're just taking a conservative approach to this. There's a possibility of some charter work coming up this year, but that hasn't been confirmed yet. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, one thing I know for certain: we will not have the money to be able to do this, but what we might be able to do is go back and pull out whatever information we had previous to the department having a look at it and have a look at the situation and pull that information together with what we have and then we can have a look at it. I know coming in this next fiscal year we will not be able to do that, at all, but we will pull the information together that we presently have and have a look at maybe seeing what the cost analysis would be on doing that. Thank you, Mr...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Well, our department for sure doesn't have anything to do with Giant Mine, but one thing I can tell the Member is that a number of us are down there talking to the federal Ministers, and we can certainly raise the issue of the opportunities that arise here.

I know the last time we were down there, I was talking to the federal Procurement Minister about some of the issues that we have in the Northwest Territories around some of their public tender processes. This is something that I can certainly talk to my Cabinet colleagues and make sure it is on everyone's radar with...

I can't give you an exact number, but I can tell you that we have met with a number of stakeholders and interested parties that want to invest in the Northwest Territories, and the ones that are investing here are glad to see the hard work that this government is doing on a number of these files, as I have said, since devolution.

We have taken over the LPs or the land and resource part of this from the federal government. It is going to create more certainty for the mining industry to come to the Northwest Territories, and we will continue to engage all residents, stakeholders, and industry on...

As the Member knows, we have all sat down with all of the Indigenous governments in the Northwest Territories, and one of the number one priorities of this Premier and this Assembly is to address land claims in the Northwest Territories. The Premier has done a tremendous amount of work on this file. We have made substantive offers to two of the three outstanding land claimant groups in the Northwest Territories, and we are working on getting something with the third one. There is some significant progress being made there. The recent announcements with the federal government on how they are...

Mr. Speaker, investments in effective and resilient infrastructure provide the foundation for a stronger North. Through infrastructure improvements, we can better connect communities to services they rely on, while mitigating the cost of living and doing business. Replacing or upgrading our assets increases our resiliency to the impacts of climate change and as we expand our infrastructure, we will support important economic development that provides residents with well-paying jobs and training opportunities.

Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories has often worked in...

Early in the life of this government, I was the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, so I am quite aware of the protected area strategies moving forward. This was something that was under the federal legislation, and now it has been switched over to the Northwest Territories, and we are moving on those fronts. It is a complicated file. It's not like we can just shelve all of the protected area strategies that the federal government was working on. These are led by a number of Indigenous governments, the areas that they want to protect, and it is a complicated issue.

As I have said...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are doing quite a bit. We get a lot of heat sometimes for going to some of the shows that we go to in the press. We have been to Mineral Roundup. The Premier and I have just been to PDAC, but it is one of the reasons that this government has developed a Mineral Development Strategy, and that is to address some of these inconsistencies that people have about the Northwest Territories. The 17th Assembly had signed on to devolution, and that gives us the tools that we need to change a lot of legislation to help us address some of these things, be it the Mineral Resource...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member stated, with the high numbers, no, we are not going to change the way we are looking at this. We believe that our approach to this whole thing coming forward is showing that our strategy of tourism 2020 is actually working for the Northwest Territories and it's showing great success. We're on track to hit our $207 million spent by tourism by 2021.

As I've said in this House just recently, our numbers are up, hitting record-breaking numbers again. The NWT marketing plan, which I tabled last week, is a big part of that equation, as well.

To those comments, I want to say a couple of things, first of all, before I talk about the Mineral Resource Act. I have talked to many exploration companies and mining companies in the Northwest Territories, and this, for the most part, this is a very fictitious story, that our regulatory process is one that hinders exploration and development in the NWT. Yes, it has certainty around it. We have the federal side of it that we are trying to get control of through devolution. The Aboriginal governments have their process, but, at the end of the day, when you go through our process, it is lengthy...