Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions today are for the Premier. My first question is will the Premier commit to an allofgovernment response to Canada's first national infrastructure assessment engagement called "Building the Canada we want in 2050" and will the Premier commit to sharing the GNWT's submission with standing committee?
Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Honourable Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Actually, whenever we do any submissions to Canada for such projects, we try to do an allofgovernment approach. Right now, currently, our departments are reviewing the Canada's engagement paper and will be consolidating and submitting a formal response to that. But I do want to highlight as well, is that's not the only chance that we get.
This government has taken a strong stance in building partnerships, relationships with the federal government. Every chance we get, Mr. Speaker, we are lobbying the federal government to increase our infrastructure, not only the amount of infrastructure but the cost of infrastructure for us. And we will continue that throughout this term. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the NWT's housing deficit, and given that the NWT has a large housing deficit and that housing is a priority of this government, will the Premier commit to highlighting housing within the engagement response to ensure we continue to moving the housing needle in the NWT? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Housing was identified within our priorities at the beginning of this government. It's always been a priority of mine and many colleagues around the table, how housing was an issue for. I've heard housing over the last year and a half coming from the other side of the House constantly.
The pandemic actually, we had we didn't have enough housing before, and the pandemic brought it to the forefront that we don't have enough and we're moving backwards instead of frontwards. So, yes, absolutely, housing has become a priority for us. It's one of our main priorities. In fact, we're working on it. So not only are we bumping up the staff within the housing departments, one position specifically, to look at the federal engagement and to look at our policies within the housing thing. We've also been working with our federal government. We've earlier this year, the GNWT proposed to the federal government to establish an intergovernmental working group of officials, with Canada, that would bring together all players in housing, including Infrastructure Canada, Innovation Canada, CanNor, Indian and Northern Affairs, Indigenous Services Canada, and CMHC. Now, this is kind of a new thing that we haven't tried before, but I am pleased to report, Mr. Speaker, that Canada is on board and has agreed to doing this working group with us. So we are if we're all at the table and we're meeting with them regularly, I am hopeful that housing will be a priority in the GNWT for the federal government as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you very much. Mr. Speaker, this engagement is about transforming of technologies and thinking outside the box for what we want our communities to look like here in the Northwest Territories. How will the Premier ensure that departments integrate their approach to infrastructure? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said earlier, all departments get together, and we talk about our infrastructure needs. When we put in the request to Canada, it's various. It's not only on ideas like this, such as the public engagement on the national infrastructure assessment. We meet with them. In fact, through COVID we're meeting with them every two weeks, usually, with the Prime Minister and all Premiers. At those tables, we talk about the deficits and the infrastructure needs. We search every Minister here works on their infrastructure needs with the appropriate Ministers. I carry those forward at the Premier's table. And we also look at ideas of when the federal budget just came out. We become as flexible as we can. We look at our needs and we look at their mandates, and we try to make them work together. So that's Canada has a win and the NWT has a win. And that's what partnerships is and that's about being flexible, and you need to be flexible when you're working in anywhere. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, the honourable Premier. Oral questions. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, case studies show that on the failures of infrastructure strategies, the focus is on governance and regulatory regimes that don't keep pace with technical and social capacity or our needs. One example of that, Mr. Speaker, here in the Northwest Territories, is we can say we're sitting at all these table and that we're partnering together and we're really working forward or moving forward in order to make change, but then we can't make policy changes at the basic levels of our departments to make people work together and make our policies work for the people of the Northwest Territories. So I'm wondering how does the Premier intend to respond to transformative technologies with modern governance structures that allow us to evolve to the North we want to be? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm not aware of the case studies that the Member is speaking of so I can't really speak on those studies per se. But what I can say, Mr. Speaker, is that the GNWT has learned very quickly to be very flexible in technologies. Climate change's impacting the North more than any other jurisdiction in the world. So with climate change, we're looking at all of our infrastructure, our oil fields, our housing projects, everything. And we bring those forward to the federal government at all asks, so. So we need to be flexible, Mr. Speaker. And we need to be aware of the impacts and the technologies that will help us to deal with the impacts. We've been doing that for many years because of climate change and we will continue to do it as we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, honourable Premier. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
