Shane Thompson

In favour.

Thank you, and I thank the Member for this very important question. The Taltson River flooding event resulted in significant damages to cabins out there, and we viewed applications individually to look at how best to support the applicants. So there is an exception to it, in that process there. We will again review application on casebycase basis and suggest that affected hunters and trappers reach out to their local ENR office. Again, just so the impacted people out there, please reach out to our regional offices. We're willing to work with you and, again, there will be exceptions that we...

In favour.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Before I answer that, I'd like to thank both the MLAs from Yellowknife and the Speaker for keeping constant contact to me as we watched the river break up there. I mean, it was devastating. And my condolences to the residents that have been impacted.

Mr. Speaker, ENR is currently conducting review of the current Hunters and Trappers Disasters Compensation Policy, including program criteria, eligibility, and scope of operational guidelines. This review will build on past experiences, including recent flooding events in a number of communities across the Northwest...

In favour.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document, NWT State of Environmental Report 2022. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish I could give the Member and the public a confirmed date, but presently, we don't have that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.