Shane Thompson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, our environment is changing rapidly. Average temperature in the territory are rising up to four times faster than the rest of the world. Coastal erosion is already affecting communities, and melting permafrost is impacting infrastructure. We know that icefree summers in the Arctic will become a reality in the future, and ice jams have caused largescale flooding events in the NWT two years in a row. There are many factors that contribute to ice jam flooding, and climate change is affecting each of these factors in different ways. We will continue to see...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can't give you that number because we don't know what that number is. We're getting the assessments in. We're looking at what I can tell you, last year, from the flood with Little Buffalo, Jean Marie, Fort Simpson, and Fort Good Hope, and Aklavik, we came up and it cost us just under 40 million. I think it was 37.5 million. That's what that disaster had cost us.

We also adapted or changed the Disaster Assistance Policy from a $100,000 to $240,000. We also changed what people are eligible from 80 percent to 90 percent. So we have these additional costs.

I...

Thank you. As I explained to the Member here, the process is to make sure they register first. Once they register first, our pathfinders will be working with them. We also then have assessors. Once the assessors are looking at their residence, how it's impacted, they do a report. Then we get the report. We bring it forth to the resident. That's the pathfinder's, that's a responsibility. Then we explain the process to them. From there, if the resident wishes to ask for an advance because they can't afford it, then it's seven to ten days from the time we put it in to assess them. The Department...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I've stated previously, we receive additional information about the knowledge gap and Alberta's plan to develop regulations, I will share with the MLAs.

To be clear, no discharge of the tailing waters allowed from the oil sands at this time and no decision has been made by the Government of Alberta pursuant to regulations to release oil sands tailing water.

The GNWT understands and shares the concerns with Indigenous governments, Indigenous organizations, NWT residents, and MLAs on the potential release of oil sand tailing waters and continue to bring...

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...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when you look at the situation, so accommodations, we've done an RFP for B&Bs, hotels, motels, and we also are in the process, if it's not already been done, for camps. So that there is for the residents that are impacted. We are working with them. There's a number of residents that are staying with friends, family. They've got their 5th wheel I guess you'd call it. They're already working on there.

So in regards to accommodations, should they, right now if they're elderly that have disabilities or young families that are impacted by homes, we have a vetting...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the quick answer is no. We're hoping the contractors that people look at are reputable. But the contractors that we have in place, the assessors, and the abatement crews, they're reputable with these are companies that we know that are working there. We encourage the residents that are being impacted if they are going to get contractors there, make sure that they make sure that these people are reputable moving forward.

I can tell you that in the experience from my experience last year, a lot of the contractors that we used were all reputable businesses in...