Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Member for the question. So we've been going on for about two years from as me from being the Minister. There's been constant communication. As I said today, we did have a productive meeting with Cheetah this morning or this afternoon at 12, me and Minister Wawzonek and the Premier. We had a conversation with them. We're getting really close to hopefully coming up with a final agreement. But at the end of the day, we need to make sure that we protect our environment for future residents. It's about our children, our grandchildren, and greatgrandchildren. But in the conversations with Cheetah, I think we're very, very close, and I appreciated Mr. Atkins coming all the way back or all the way up from Australia to have these conversations and hopefully we can have closure to this and move forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Tu NedheWiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. If necessary, would the Minister commit to advising the Assembly on future progress in terms of enabling this project to proceed? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm more than willing to meet with committee to give an update once we finalize it. I don't want to talk about the work and the process it's in right now. I want to be able to get a final closure to it, and then I'm more than willing to bring that information to committee. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if we ever expect to realize living wages for NWT workers, we need increased resource development to move that initiative forward, because we can't rely on finite federal funding to prop up the economy forever.
So Mr. Speaker, the Premier previously stated that the Northwest Territories requires investments and strategic infrastructure that can help to unlock our natural resource potential when seeking commitment from the federal government for 100 percent flexible infrastructure funding. Can the Premier confirm where this government is with respect to achieving those goals? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Honourable Premier.
Mr. Speaker, I'd like to defer that to the Minister of Infrastructure. She's taking the lead on the infrastructure funding. Thank you.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm happy to report that progress has been made on all three of our strategic infrastructure projects: The Slave Geological Province Corridor, the Mackenzie Valley Highway, and the Taltson Hydro Expansion.
Our work is supported by over $250 million in combined federal and territorial support to advance these three important projects. Funding to date has been 75 federal for Mackenzie Valley Highway/Slave Geological Province and 100 percent federal for Taltson.
While all three of these projects are currently at different stages ranging from a feasibility and planning to environmental assessment, they are all advancing. You know, some of the key milestones for these projects this year include Mackenzie Valley Highway, submission of the developer’s assessment report to the Mackenzie Valley Environmental Impact Review Board this fall to advancing environmental assessment, advancement of Prohibition Creek and Mount Gadet access road projects.
For the Slave Geological Province Corridor, advance of Indigenous knowledge, environmental engineering work to support future project applications, discussions with Canada and Indigenous governments regarding a request by the Tlicho government to undertake a regional strategic environmental assessment of the project.
Regarding the Taltson Hydro Expansion, routing selection, Indigenous knowledge, environmental and engineering work to support the future project applications, working with our Indigenous partners to discuss commercial structure for the project.
Mr. Speaker, we continue to talk with communities and Indigenous governments and Indigenous organizations on these important projects so they are prepared to take advantage of future economic and social benefits. Quyananni.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That was a mouthful.
Mr. Speaker, extraction of resources is one component of oil and gas and mineral resource development. Refining the product is another. The community of Hay River, with its railhead highway access and marine facilities, is strategically located to accommodate such infrastructure.
Can the Premier confirm what effort or incentives this government puts in to encouraging natural resource development companies to establish processing or process extraction facilities in communities such as Hay River? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The responsibility for new businesses is the Minister of ITI. I'd like to defer the question to the Minister of ITI. Thank you.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Madam Premier. Mr. Speaker, we're always looking for opportunities. We are happy to work with any proponent, whether that's as a pathfinder of our own processes and our own regulatory processes, whether it's as a pathfinder of understanding what the federal processes might be. Mr. Speaker, obviously, for I shouldn't say obviously, but for any larger scale programs they are typically on the mineral resources side, they would involve often IBAs, SEAs, social economic agreements, impact benefit agreements, and so certainly to the extent that they're able to provide value added in terms of, you know, increasing the amount of northern component, then that will, no doubt, be a benefit on those fronts. So, you know, we're certainly happy, as I say, more than happy to work with any project that is looking at developments here in the territory. I expect, really, Mr. Speaker, we'd wind up being whole of government, and we'd probably see Lands involved; you'd probably see ENR involved. And certainly in my experience in the last two years, the LNR departments Lands, Natural Resources departments are now actively meeting, actively working together and quite ready to look at those kinds of opportunities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we know the resource sector wants certainty respecting complex regulations along with restrictive land use planning legislation and policy something this and past governments have discussed for years with little to no resolution on how to soften it.
Can the Premier tell me what this government is doing to streamline processes or at least to lay the groundwork for future governments to ensure longterm resource development and processing takes place in the NWT? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, that question's for the Minister of ITI. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Honourable Premier. Minister responsible for ITI.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's sort of two parts there. In terms, Mr. Speaker, of knowing the processing side, that's much more complicated. It involves large tracts of land potentially. But, Mr. Speaker, with respect to the regulatory processes we have here in the territories, we already have the client services/client relations folks within ITI who are system navigators and well known to help proponents get through our system. There's a Mackenzie Valley operational dialogue that's happening right now with the regulatory bodies as well as with government to ensure that we are all working together to make regulatory processes achieve their goals but also being achieve their goals of being protective of the interests that they need to protect but of course of being understandable and to the proponents who are going through them. Then, of course, Mr. Speaker, there's the Mineral Resources Act that is currently seeing its regulations being developed which to the extent that we are responsible for our regulatory processes, that is a system that's being codeveloped and worked through the IGCS, the Indigenous governments the Indigenous governmental relations. And last thing, Mr. Speaker, you're seeing the same thing happening with public lands. So really our system as a whole now is becoming whole of government, and it's one that is already evolving significantly to be more clear, more transparent, more involved, and will continue to do so over the next couple of years of this government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Hay River South.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with closure of mines and oil and gas facilities come opportunities for reclamation, a discipline where Indigenous and northernbased companies can provide this service.
Can the Minister tell me what supports or plans are in place to ensure that Indigenous and northern companies are prepared to take this work on? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, with that regard, again, we're looking at multiple departments all working together. ENR does have the lead in terms of developing right now and actively right now developing remediation economy document and strategy so that we best understand where the opportunities lie. ITI and ECE work together in terms of understanding what training opportunities exist and what our labour market needs are going to be over the next few years, including in the remediation sphere. So both of those things are underway. Again, all three departments are actively involved in discussing, one with the other, to make sure that we're also keeping in touch with industry and private sector so that we're not just off developing these things in a vacuum; we're developing these things in lockstep with what's happening in the private sector and so that we can, of course, best take advantage of those opportunities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to start just by commending the GNWT for some of the creative options it already has such as deferred leave where a worker can take a reduced pay cut for a number of years and then have a year off with leave without pay, or options such as flex days where workers can increase their working hours in a day to get an additional day off. All of which are great programs that cost the GNWT no money but help with retention.
However, Mr. Speaker, I believe we need to go further and try and formalize some policy around a fourday workweek. I have talked to workers who have requested to work four days with the reduced pay cut and have been told no, and those workers have told me they're not already they're already not working full time, Mr. Speaker; they're just sitting in a chair, and I don't see why we wouldn't approve them to get that time off. So I think there's a number of different ways to do this but we need to review our policies.
And my question for the Minister of Finance is whether we will review our current leave policies with the aim of allowing more workers to work a fourday workweek? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when I heard the Member's statement earlier, I already had a thought of pointing out the fact that there's the ability to work a compressed schedule already. There's the work the ability to work a flex schedule already. There's the ability to look at, you know, having deferred leave. There's actually a very flexible set of opportunities in many regards for the employees in the public service. So, you know, whether it's a question of there being some specific employees who may have requested access to some of those programs and being denied, those specific requests should probably come in so that they can be examined individually. I'm not sure that this is necessarily the time to say that the entire system itself isn't being flexible enough when, as I've just noted and as the Member already said, there's quite a number of flexible opportunities already in existence.
At the end of the day, there's operational needs. Some positions aren't going to have the operational capacity to be as flexible as others. Again, I can't say whether or not those are the examples that are being provided here by the Member. But that's always going to have to be an examinations that fundamentally we need to make sure we're providing our programs and services and providing the positions and the staff to do so. But beyond that, Mr. Speaker, we have quite a flexible array of options already and would encourage people to make use of them. Thank you.
Yeah, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate that and, you know, I get that certain positions perhaps need the oneoff policy, but I think we could really be a leader here and we could find positions and pilot a fourday workweek. Perhaps it's a it's a summer Fridays model, which is becoming more common. And then I think we would need to do it as a pilot project and evaluate things such as, you know, were less sick days taken; was there a decline in productivity. I know many workplaces have actually found that it would increase in productivity when shifting to a fourday workweek. So I think we need to be a little bit more conscious of how we are granting that leave to people. And so my question for the Minister of Finance is could we find some units or some appropriate positions and pilot a fourday workweek? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's no plans right now to be piloting a fourday workweek. There are plans right now and work underway to develop a GNWTwide public service strategy, government you know, human resources strategy. So to the extent that we'll be engaging and available to members of the public service to have feedback and to discuss where and what they see as some of the challenges in terms of our you know, whether it's morale, whether it's opportunities to be better engaged, whether there's learning plans, whether there's other options, you know, that that's the kind of feedback I'm interested to hear. I am not as I say, right this moment, there's not a plan to introduce a pilot workweek other than to say that I would certainly encourage folks who are thinking about flexibility to look at the programs that exist and to make those requests, and that might be a good initial step to make sure that they're accessing the programs that are already there. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
In my statement, I mentioned that Cabinet says that a review's been conducted of the Mining Incentive Program. Can the Minister confirm whether that has been done and explain why it has not been publicly released nor the response from the department. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there has been an evaluation of the program done in June of 2020. I know some of that information and some of the matrices that go with it have been shared with committees. No, it has not all gone out to the public but that's not necessarily unusual. Not every evaluation or program review that is done by the GNWT necessarily goes public. In fact, it would be unusual for it to be otherwise. So that said, I'm certainly happy to take this away and take a look at, perhaps as the Department of Finance who would be more of the lead in terms of their evaluations, program evaluations, to look at what more we could release publicly on this particular program. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Yes, and I would like her to release it publicly. I've asked her privately about that, and now I've done it publicly.
Under the current guidelines and forms, applicants are not required to disclose any permits or licenses already obtained to commit to comply with them or disclose billing compliance to ITI if successful. Can the Minister commit to make these changes to the Mining Incentive Program applications to ensure bad actors are not eligible and only legitimate work is funded? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I am the forms have gone out for 20222023, but let me be clear, I don't think we we don't want bad actors and nor do I believe that we are a wash of bad actors. It is expected that if someone's going to be getting funding to undertake any kind of work anywhere in the Northwest Territories that in order to do so, they're going to have to be compliant with whatever regulatory requirements apply to their project. And I will note I'm told that in the past, in fact ITI has declined to fund projects where their permitting was an issue within the timeframes allotted. So, you know, again, I maybe what I'll say is for the 20232024 term for the next round, we certainly can be express about that in the forms. There's no harm in doing so. And it just reenforces our commitment to our regulatory process, makes it clear, and allows applicants to have the opportunity to access client services folks if they need some assistance to make sure that they are properly applying for the regulatory process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I think that was a yes, and I'm more than happy to take that as a commitment from the Minister, and I think it's a positive contribution I've made to help mining in the NWT.
So there is no requirement, though, in the for applicants to disclose whether they are in debt to GNWT or other governments or have unpaid taxes. While GNWT may be able to check some of this internally, the onus should be on the applicants for full disclosure, and those in debt to government should not be funded. Again, can the Minister commit to make these changes to program applications to ensure bad actors are not eligible and only legitimate work is funded? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And Mr. Speaker, that was a yes. Again, I'm confident that the folks that are applying are going to be going through the regulatory process so we will amend the 20232024 applications to be clear about that. And let me throw another yes out there.
We will again, for 20232024, happy to make it very clear that you can't have outstanding debts to the government if you're applying. That, again, that's already the case. The forms may not be express in that regard, and there's no harm in making that very clear, that anyone that's going to be getting funding from the government can't have outstanding debts to the GNWT; they need to be in good standing in order to access further funds. That would certainly be part of that.
So there hasn't been a concern. Again, we tend to have, fortunately, good actors here. But as the Member has said, let's reword them and let's make that clear and make that known, that the folks that are coming up to the Northwest Territories are, in fact, doing so above board and in good standing. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Two yeses in a row? Wow, that's great, let's keep it up. Go for a third one.
I could not see anywhere in the evaluation criteria or the applications where environmental innovation or efforts to reduce environmental disturbance is rewarded in any way during the Mining Incentive Program.
Can the Minister explain how environmental best practices and innovation are considered in all Mining Incentive Program applications? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So Mr. Speaker, a lot of the projects, in fact I gather the majority of the projects that are coming through the Mineral Incentive Program, are early stage or fairly low impact projects. So these are not they're at the front end of the life cycle, and they're not necessarily ones that would have a significant amount of disturbance. That said, Mr. Speaker, the Member's quite right, I am quite committed to promoting the fact that the Northwest Territories is and will be a growing leader on ESG environmental, social, and governance factors and so while we're at it, why don't we look at our 20232024 guidelines and make it again very express that we expect industry in the North to adhere to what we already I think saw happening and to what we think is a value that brings value add to the industries and to proponents. Namely, that they that they do maintain and consider the highest stakes of ESG, or environmental, social, and governance factors. So, you know, it's a yes that has to come with a bit of wording to follow. But, again, we're confident that that's the kind of industry we want here, and it's the add industry we have so I don't expect that that will be that we'll be I expect that we will be able to find some language that reflects that for the next year. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Just I have a couple more questions for the Minister of Infrastructure.
She mentioned that her senior officials will be meeting today with the National Defence. My question is is will she reach out to the contractors, their senior officials, and maybe have a tripartite meeting so that we can get the project moving? You can all talk, and you can see how you can resolve to move forward. Thank you.
Thank you, Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the meeting is happening now and, you know, I'm going to get a brief probably towards the end of the day, and then we'll I'll reach out to the Member and see what we can do because the Member is right, it is an important project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, this is $150 million project, possibly more, in our backyard. National security, Arctic sovereignty. You know, everything that we have right now, we're we need to to this project to move forward. We cannot delay it any further. And I'm just asking the Minister, even if the meeting is on right now, will she commit to meeting with the three tripartite meeting to resolve the further issues. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are having discussions now, you know, internally. I just I want to make note, Mr. Speaker, that this project is a DND project and that, you know, they're fully funding this project. So we need to be able to continue to reach out. And I know time is of the essence, and I'll keep that in mind and we'll see how the meeting goes. And I have been in contact with the contractors; I have been in contact with my senior officials; and the National Defence office as well. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Minister tell us why there's such a big issue to state that she won't say her senior officials, the National Defence, and the contractors can't sit down? This is what they're asking. Can she commit to being transparent and having the meeting with the three of them all together? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, like I said, I will have to see what came out of the meeting today and perhaps see what the next steps are. Thank you.
