Shane Thompson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, residents and businesses may receive an advance up to 50 percent of the damage identified in the damage assessment that were completed with each resident and business. Those who have unique hardships, where they are required to pay specific costs in advance or are unable to access other finances and have no other options, may be eligible for an advancement up to 100 percent of their anticipated costs for repairs. GNWT pathfinders have been working directly with those individuals who have indicated that they meet the criteria in additional assistance...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there is presently eight MACA declared solely to the 2022 flood recovery effort. We have a director and a finance officer in Yellowknife, and we have six pathfinders; four in Hay River and two in Yellowknife. In addition, there's excessive support being provided by several staff at Yellowknife, or headquarters, and the South Slave Region as well as other GNWT departments, including Environment and Natural Resources, Infrastructure, Housing NWT, and Finance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Therese Bertrand was born on March 1st, 1934, at Fisherman Lake. Her parents were Marie Angele and Laurent Deneron. She passed away on May 22nd, 2022, at the age of 88. Therese was raised at Fisherman Lake in the springtime, and during the fall, her parents and siblings spent time on the land in Yunaa, also called "across the river".

She met her husband Phillip Bertrand in 1949 when she was 15 years old. They moved to Maxhamish where they raised their nine children.

Therese was brought up in the traditional Dene lifestyle by lakes with lots of fish, birds, animals with...

Thank you, Madam Chair. My problem is it's not the minimum wage. My problem is it isolation allowance? You know, we give I know my CA's getting more than $25 an hour but we should be giving them isolation allowance. That's what we should be doing. So this motion here doesn't address that, especially for our constituent assistants outside of Yellowknife. So that there is where I'm you know, I'm already paying more than $25 an hour but isolation allowance is where the impact on in my riding, I have staff that, you know, my CA works with me but he could work for the government and get the same...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Environmental assessments, in general, are specific to a project. While a regional strategic environmental assessment is much broader than looking at a single project and, in this case, a proposed much larger geographical scale. A regional strategic environmental assessment is designed to assist with the potential environment, social and economic effects, including cumulative effects are alternating strategies initiatives, policies, planning or programs for a particular region. Environmental assessments and regional studies processes do not compete with each other. They...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The GNWT has not taken a position on the name or geographical scope or the regional strategic environmental assessment. CrownIndigenous relationships in Northern Affairs Canada has authorized authority for regional studies under the MVRMA, and they have been gathering perspectives and views regarding potential regional strategic environmental assessment. Our message to the federal government has been that if the federal government moves ahead on this, it is important that they hear the views of governments, Indigenous governments, and other stakeholders in the NWT and...

Wow, the Member's telling us when we can do it, and it's really good. I think there may have been an email exchange back and forth between the Member and myself. But just so people are aware, MACA has been meeting frequently with residents in Hay River office and on site, on their properties. These meetings are occurring on an ongoing basis with our pathfinders as well as senior management for those individuals who completed situations.

Mr. Speaker, I have to applaud the Member from Hay River North, Hay River South, and the Deh Cho for reaching out and working with us, and having these...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we actually just hired our climate change specialist in the department. He has vast experience in climate change, and he is now in place with the department. In regards to the bolstering other staff, like, we've had our EMO staff; we've created five new positions; we have three positions at headquarters. So we're working on that.

With ENR and that department there, we've also worked on creating and finding positions that will help deal with this. We've bolstered some of our staff as the government across the Northwest Territories. So we are looking at where...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said before, we work with the residents; we work with the communities. As well as we move up the river, we start working with the communities as well that have who weren't impacted so far this year. But we are working with them. We are seeing what there's some needs.

One of the questions that was proposed [sic] to me today was if a resident is impacted and we have to do some mitigation for them but the resident next door doesn't, what can we do with that. So we are going to reach out to the federal government. We're going to work with the communities...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department participates in the GNWT open data initiative to increase government transparency and accountability while maintaining the government's responsibility towards privacy, security, and legal obligations.

So we are working on it. The Public Land Act, as the Member said, isn't in force because we're doing the public land regulations on that. So until that is done, we're not able to provide that information publicly. We are working on it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.