Shane Thompson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I'm a bit early; however, I rise in this House today to congratulate the Class of 2022 for the two schools in Nahendeh riding. This year we see the Lidlii Kue Regional High School and Echo Dene School set to have their own celebrations for their graduates.

Mr. Speaker, these graduates completed school in the midst of a global pandemic. No doubt their life was disturbed. No doubt there was added stress. No doubt there was uncertainty.

Despite these challenges, or more accurately because of them, they are stronger. They are stronger students, having...

In favour.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said last week and with Trailblazer this morning, that the standardized list, item list will be posted out on the MACA website this week. We're hoping within the next couple of days. Along with information about what the list is about and how to use that to make claims for disaster assistance.

I need to tell the House and the Member and the public is that this list was developed last year during the flood. But we cannot use that same list. We need to when I say that, we need to make sure we update it. We've been working with the federal government. We...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories has four contractors to provide abatement services in the town of Hay River and K'atlodeeche First Nations. The contractors are Arctic Canada Construction, Commercial NDS, Wilf's Restoration Limited, and WINMAR. Three of the four contractors are NWT BIP registered companies, Mr. Speaker. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I hear the concerns by my Member from Hay River South. I can tell you that as the Member that was with Nahendeh, I wasn't invited to those meetings as well. It's local EMO and the team that are doing the work. So I understand your frustrations about it, but it's the process, and that's how the work is done.

ENR hydrologists have worked close have close working relationships with their counterparts in Alberta, Saskatchewan, British Columbia, and Yukon. They receive information about snow accumulation each spring and other information of water levels as...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'll actually get the Minister of ENR to answer that question because it will be more of an ENR question.

The Department of Environment and Natural Resources has three dedicated hydrologists. During spring breakup, these three hydrologists assessed conditions and relay information on to Municipal and Community Affairs, communities, and residents regarding water levels and ice conditions and forecast weather. If required, they can reach out to other agencies and scientists such as Environment and Climate Change Canada and Natural Resources Canada to assess...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ENR has regular meetings with the Alberta government and their staff on the development of regulations. To date, there hasn't been any significant new information to share.

Alberta has made it clear that no decisions to develop a regulation has been made and that they will wait to fill knowledge gaps before deciding to proceed.

Regarding what ENR is doing, we are seeking expert technical support to support our review of the information we receive from Alberta. These Requests for Proposals have been and are expected to be posted shortly with the goal of...

Thank you, and I thank the Member for that question.

So the first part is in regards to the standardized list. Last year, we developed a standardized list. We provided that to the people that were impacted. Then we put a value to it. This year, we have that standardized list but because of inflation, we want to make sure that it's more current information. We should have that information available early next week and pathfinders into the insurance companies, the MLAs, and to the assessors as well. So we'll have that information available.

In regards to contractors, should an individual wish to...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, advance payments can be issued based on the detailed damage assessments. So in other words, we ask the impacted residents to reach out to our pathfinders, register, then we get our assessors in there, and then we're able to do that. Then we work with the community members to make sure that they understand what we're doing, then if they need to go do an advance it takes seven to ten days to get it done. So we work with them on that there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have all heard about the war in Ukraine and witnessed its impact on the news. In this House, we saw numerous Members donate to the Canadian Red Cross and the GNWT made a commitment to match the donations by NWT residents up to a maximum of $50,000.00.

Well, closer to home, our pharmacist and his wife were impacted deeply. Ukraine was their home country. In 2011, he immigrated to Canadian to start a new life. As the war broke out, they watched in horror. They had family and close friends living there So he started with a petition asking the federal...