Shane Thompson

The letters being sent out to leaseholders are a legal document and should not have the tone, and we apologize if people see there is a tone to it. What we encourage the Member to do is to get her constituents to reach out to our regional office and to have the conversation with our regional staff so they can better understand what we are trying to do.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I have committed previously in this House to the Member and others, is that I have made a commitment within the next three years to have the public land regulations in place. We are still on stride right now. We have two and a half years left in that commitment, and we are trying to get it done in that timeframe or sooner. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Again, I would encourage the Member to get her constituents to reach out to the regional office so they can better understand that. We're in a pandemic. We came up with a solution presently, and so we were happy to waive the fees for a year, starting April 1, 2020, which was $2.7 million from our coffers. It was a commitment we made during this Assembly, during this fiscal year, to do proper things for our residents. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am going to try to get straight to the point. We have heard everybody speak. The significance of revoking a Minister's portfolio and asking to have them removed from Cabinet is not something that is taken lightly.

I recognize the public wants to know why and what is happening. I can't and will not speak about what is happening in meetings in confidence and conversations. That is between Cabinet and our colleague and Caucuses and my meetings with the Minister on related issues.

The Premier has taken this very seriously and has worked with the Minister to repeatedly...

Again, some of the challenges that we are dealing with COVID. ENR was unable to secure a research firm from Nunavut to proceed the planning calving grounds survey of the Bathurst and Bluenose East herds. The survey will be rescheduled for June 2021, which will be three years since the last survey, which is within our time frame that we do the survey. Other herd monitoring programs are able to continue, including composition surveys, monitoring radio-collared caribou, and other target research. Given the very low size of the Bathurst heard, ENR and its co-management partners are currently doing...

This was a very disturbing result that we had seen this past winter. I am actually going to take a bit of time to read out the whole response here, because I think that it's very important that the public hears and understands what we are doing.

ENR actively monitored the Bathurst caribou management zone, or mobile zone, throughout the winter 2019-2020 harvest season. The monitoring includes checkpoints at McKay Lake and Gordon Lake and regular ground and aerial patrols. Given an increase in harvesting on the winter road, ENR increased its presence and monitoring activities.

In late March...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. COVID-19 has thrown us a curve in our celebrations of the class of 2020 graduation in Nahendeh. I have been informed that these graduation ceremonies have been postponed to allow the celebration plans to be approved by the Chief Public Health Officer. I look forward to being part of those celebrations later on in the year. However, the DEAs and school staff and community members have placed signage in the streets, set up a Web page, developed family photos, given out cooler packages, and a number of other opportunities to celebrate with our successful graduates.

In...

The collaborative development of the Bathurst caribou range plan provides guidance on activities to support the range of the Bathurst caribou herd, including mobile protective measures. ENR has developed a draft framework for implementing the mobile caribou conservation measures on the range of the Bathurst herd. This framework will provide a pilot project that has been done this year to test the approach and procedures for implementing mobile measures. A possible industry partner has been identified to work with ENR to pilot the mobile measures within the late summer and fall range of the...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. ENR and the Tlicho government submitted a proposal for a joint wolf management program to help support the recovery of the Bathurst and Bluenose East herds. The Wek'eezhii Renewable Resources Board supported a pilot project this winter, and field work wrapped up in mid-May. While we face a number of challenges related to COVID and bad weather, we were able to complete a range of actions to support caribou recovery.

Mr. Speaker, these actions include training and incentives for wolf harvesters as part of the traditional economy, putting out 11 satellite collars to monitor...

Unfortunately, I can't make that commitment. I am becoming the Minister of "No." However, we do have a number of activities, things that various departments are doing. We are also working with NGOs to identify concerns and issues that we can help work with them. At the end of the day, as the Member says, you plan to fail or whatever the statement was. I get that one mixed up. If you fail to plan, you fail, but at the end of the day, we are working with the government departments to make sure that the issues are brought forth, that we can work to be able to achieve that. We have a variety of...