Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, the final version of the critical minerals strategy is still fairly new. I think it was only within the last year they've been doing some consultations on it. And obviously it's difficult for me to say precisely what we hope the federal government may or may not do. What I can say, Madam Speaker, is at this point we have put ourselves in position to be at the second round of tables. They are conducting national resource energy tables right now, "they, the federal government. And we were not initially on round two but we are now. And that process has...

Madam Speaker, I think my first two answers were already long so I'm going to try and get this one shorter, but this one could be longer than the last two.

I'm happy to say that really, we have a lot of those policies. And I certainly wouldn't want the fact that we are now at the next stage of really developing our attention on Indigenous hiring, and of being a representative workforce, to lose sight again of the fact that we do now have the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework. In that, there are action items, and within all of that as well and in conjunction with that, we still have...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I might draw your attention back to the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework. This was put out I now believe back in December of a couple of years ago. That was the fruit of much research and consultation at that time, looking at a number of barriers across a number of areas that we were going to start to address. You now see, and you'll see in the main estimates, there are targets being set for each department. There are also in addition to that in order to set those targets, there was a labour force statistical analysis conducted in June of...

Madam Speaker, I wish to table the following two documents: Grants and Contributions Results Report 20212022; and, What We Heard Report 2022 Engagement on Resource Royalties. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Yes, thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, certainly we don't want to create government barriers or bureaucracy, particularly in a context where some of the criticism we get is that our regulatory systems already have quite a lot of layers to them. Certainly what we found in the last recent while is that there's a shift internationally recognizing the value of having a robust regulatory system, one that involves and engages Indigenous peoples from the very beginning so that when a project goes through that process, they know that it's certain, they know that it's secure, and they know that...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. So, Madam Speaker, there was a letter sent out to Indigenous governments back in October of 2022, and I know I've heard back directly myself from some, and others I know, or I believe are going to be participating in the community consultations. There's two months’ worth of community engagement sessions happening now through to the end of March. And, Madam Speaker, I just want to also note I had also heard that some people of course can't necessarily make it to a specific date. I've asked that we had a virtual session towards the end which would hopefully capture...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, under the current policy, the affirmative action policy, there is still this ranking system that goes on, what everyone knows as the P1s, P2s, but within that you have P1A, P1B, and all these different sorts of ranking depending upon the position, depending upon who's in the position. So there's already complexity within there that categorizes people under different ways depending on the job and then creates this priority listing. Madam Speaker, what we're actually doing now is separating that out so that it is very clear that first there is the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm very pleased to have had the assistance of a couple of pages from Yellowknife South this week. Mr. Jude Brothers was here earlier this week. He's not technically in the House anymore, I didn't realize it was his last day, but I am grateful for his assistance. Today, however, we have Larah Peters, and she is also joined by her parents Michele and Ryan Peters. They are up in the gallery and are residents of Yellowknife South. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: Report on the Staff Retention Policy for 20192020, 20202021, and 20212022. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the story starts way back in 2010. There was some policy revisions made at that time. And essentially any business that was already here at that time, and that was already operating in the Northwest Territories, was grandfathered in under that policy. And that has not changed, and so those companies continue to be on Schedule 3. Thank you.