Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier today, I talked about reducing the effects on climate change while growing our economy and wondering if it's possible to do both at the same time. My questions today are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, and I recognize and appreciate that we're in a bit of a unique situation here in the North. We've signed on to the Pan-Canadian Agreement on Clean Growth and Climate Change, and, yet, we're mandated and we want to reach the goal of growing our economy. So I have a question to the Minister: does the Minister believe that our obligations to reduce the impacts on climate change can be met while we undertake initiatives to grow the economy? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I believe we can do both, and the Member is right. We signed on to the Pan-Canadian Framework on Clean Growth and Climate Change and the Paris Accord Agreement. These are commitments that we have made as a government. We are moving on those. We are moving on these strategies. They're all in lock sync. The Energy Strategy, the Petroleum Resource Strategy, and the Climate Change Strategic Framework is coming out. They're in lock sync together. All of these departments have been working very closely together. It's a complicated issue when all of a sudden we shift our economy from a resource-based economy, around mining, around petroleum and oil and gas, and all of a sudden now we're signed on to these international agreements. We've had to change how we think and move forward. It is a challenge on how we pull these things all together because we're such a small jurisdiction and we live in probably the harshest part of the country, but our government is working very hard on how we can grow these initiatives to continue to grow our economy as well as meet the obligations that we've signed on to.
That's a reply that I like to hear; that we can grow our economy and meet our environmental obligations at the same time. Mr. Speaker, there are a number of studies out there that are looking at different types of weather events around the world, such as heat waves and precipitation and the huge storms that we've been having, and many of those same studies also look at the impacts on agriculture, industrial output, even labour productivity. So I'd like to ask the Minister: what is our government doing to measure the impacts of climate change on economic activity in the Northwest Territories?
While I believe we're already doing it because climate change is already here. When I'm speaking down south, I don't say climate change is something that's coming; it has already impacted the Northwest Territories. As a number of Members in this House know, we continue to say that it's already warmed up by 4 degrees in some parts of the Northwest Territories. So, as the Ministry of Infrastructure, in particular, we know the challenges around climate change. We have changes around construction, around maintenance, around building of ice roads, operation of government infrastructure, and that's just on our side. That's not even on the private side of things or what industry faces around climate change, around the difficulty of the ice roads for the diamond mines. So we're already doing certain measurements of impacts because we know what it's already costing this government and how we have to plan for the future around our infrastructure needs, but I think, as these new strategies roll out and we sign our bilaterals with the federal government on investment of our $500-and-some million that we're going to be receiving from the federal government around these things, there is a climate lens put on most of those programs going forward, and we'll have to have a serious look at how we're going to roll them out and how they're going to be a part of our economy.
Thank you to the Minister for his reply. I appreciate it. The Minister spoke about this a little bit earlier. We have a number of forthcoming strategies: the Energy Strategy, the Climate Change Framework; we also have the Mineral Resources Act, and other environmental pieces of legislation under review and set for change. Are these new strategies and laws being looked at through the lens of having the economy grow while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions at the same time?
As I've said, we are very concerned about this. When we went out and did our public consultation, some of the biggest things we heard is the cost of living and how it relates to our economy and how we're going to move these initiatives forward. We have to be very careful, and, at the same time, we have to meet our commitments that we've signed on to. As I've said, this is all a whole bunch of departments working together on how they pull these things together, and a big part of it is going to be our federal infrastructure dollars and how it rolls out and how do we invest those dollars and our commitments to the federal government on how we spend that money. We'll continue to work on that at the same time to meet our greenhouse gas emissions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to the Minister. My final question: I spoke about industry taking the lead toward initiatives such as toward zero mining impact and meeting new ISO certifications. I would like to ask the Minister: is our government talking with industry specifically about how we can both reach our goals of enjoying economic wealth but while also meeting our global demands to reduce emissions? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Yes, industry is a big part of our consultation process as industry is one of the biggest parts of our GDP of our Government of the Northwest Territories, so we have to consider their factors in, as well.
When we start talking about industry, I tend to lean a little bit more towards the mining side because they're the biggest part of our economy right now. We've taken their concerns into serious consideration on how we're moving this forward. There has been some great talk with them specifically around the carbon tax and how this is going to make implications on them. At the same time, we have to identify a model, as I've said, to meet our international goals and our Canadian goals, however we're going to meet our greenhouse gas emissions. At the same time, we want to minimize the impacts on our economy and the cost of living for residents of the Northwest Territories. These things are all considered while we're doing that. We don't know where we're going to end up on the carbon tax side of things as yet. There are ongoing discussions with the federal government. Going forward, we will be working very closely with industry. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
