Caitlin Cleveland

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, certainly, as Members of the Legislative Assembly, we spend a tremendous amount of time supporting residents learn about different programs across the GNWT, and I know that this is work that is also part of the homelessness strategy that lives right now within EIA with the Premier's office. And I absolutely can commit to providing information and also seeing what I can do from my part to make sure that information is accessible. For sure, I'm absolutely open to working with Members and welcome any ideas they have any time to make sure that people...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And my colleague to the right just reminded me to slow down as well, so thank you for that. I am always happy to speak with social development. Social development will always have a warm place in my heart, and I'm always happy to be invited. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Member for bringing that up. Those sticky dollars are so important to the Northwest Territories and to our economy. And that is exactly the purpose of conversations like we had at Roundup, to be able to find out from industry that is the up and coming mines, the mines that are about to open, the mines that are in the process of opening, what they need from us, how we can connect them with Indigenous governments to ensure that right from the getgo they're doing their projects properly and they're having the right conversations. So ITI is absolutely...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. Mr. Speaker, I can honestly say that when I sat down for the first time with both ECE and ITI, I was very honest with both departments in that I wanted our efforts getting to prepare residents for the mine closure and especially the workers to be whatever we were doing to be purposeful so that we were not losing this opportunity. So I can make that commitment here as well to my colleagues that that is what I have said and that is the direction I have given.

Mr. Speaker, this mine closure absolutely will be felt across the...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, this was something that the Department of Education, Culture and Employment did used to do at one point; however, with the NWT Human Rights Act, issuing payments through a voucher system is seen to be contrary to sections 5 and sections 11 of the NWT Human Rights Act. And so I am open to other suggestions from my colleagues, but I want to ensure that whatever we do is in line with the law and with the Human Rights Act. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, I think it will be an interesting week next week because we already have some kind of competing mindsets. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.

So, Mr. Speaker, the productive choices are still a requirement within the income assistance program. And back in 2020 when changes were starting to happen within the income assistance review, productive choices were switched to what's called a wellness selfcare productive choice, which means that there's no requirement of reporting. And the reason for this is when the department went out and did the...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in addition to the contribution agreement that funded the design work, the geotechnical work has been completed and this included drilling five bore holes in the site that was selected by the community. In this process, there was a collection of soil samples that was done, and this was done in order to determine the type of foundation that would be required. This also included ground temperature monitoring installing ground temperature monitoring installation or instrumentation, sorry. Say that five times. Testing was also done on the soil...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question. And I think it's a fair question. And in acknowledgement of the fact that the sector and stakeholders are working with the department, I want to say absolutely as soon as possible with a target of early March so that they have that information before going into the next fiscal year and renewed kind of funding agreement piece is there. But I want to be respectful of the fact that they're still in conversations together, still working through it and want to give them that time to really be able to come those...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we just had the opportunity as Cabinet well, there was four of us, plus we also had another MLA from the other side, the MLA for the Sahtu, that went down to Roundup in the last month. We had the opportunity to speak to many different players, so to speak, in the critical minerals and mineral extraction field and landscape. I also have the opportunity in the next month to travel to Ottawa where I will still be continuing to have conversations with private industry, with Indigenous governments, and also with the federal government. And all of...

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, what I want to start off by saying actually here is that I actually want to thank the Member for giving me the opportunity to speak about this on the floor of the House. I know this is something that has been in I like to talk a lot, Mr. Speaker. Okay. Okay, right to it, then.

Foreign investment is not all bad, Mr. Speaker. Foreign investment is something that Canada relies on, and foreign investment is something that our critical mineral mining absolutely relies on right now. And so what I can say to the Member right now is we are constantly...