Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member's statement today, I spoke about renaming places. And the first one I'd like to ask about is our Heritage Centre, which I believe is timely, as the Prince of Wales, whom it's named after, was just recently visiting it. And Mr. Speaker, I think it's long overdue that we rename this place. And I just don't really believe there's much connection to the Prince of Wales and our history and culture. And as a bit of a sidenote, I note the Welsh independence movement is gaining steam so maybe one day there won't even be a Prince of Wales and we'll just be forced to rename it.
So my question for the Minister is are there any plans or an update on renaming the museum? Perhaps he got to ask ole Chuckie Boy there whether we could take his name off of it while he was here. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We can do what we want with government owned infrastructure when it comes to naming. We don't have to ask anyone's permission. We pay the bills, we can name buildings what we want to name them.
Any change in name would be tied to some sort of a retrofit of the building, some other changes. There are plans to look at how we can perhaps fund the museum differently. We're working on a revenue study. We expect some renovations, which are required for the building and so any changes would be part and parcel of that. But I foresee that in the not too distant future we'll likely be having this conversation about the name once these other elements start rolling. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm glad to hear that. And I think it's an important discussion to have with the people of NWT. And along those same lines, you know, I think there's been consistent work to stop using the term "slavey", to stop referring to things and, you know, the use of "slave", but obviously our lake, Great Slave Lake, is named after that history. I'm just wondering if the Minister can speak to whether we can put forth the same plan to rename Great Slave Lake. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I want to commend the Member for the strong antislavery stance he took in his Member's statement.
The GNWT isn't the one who puts forward name changes for a geographical place. We have a geographical name policy, and it states that those changes come from the community. So we actually have received a request from the community to change the name of the Great Slave Lake.
We work with the Geographic Names Board of Canada on that, and there is a process. It involves community consultation, consultation with Indigenous governments, and we are undertaking that now. So the process is well underway. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I look forward to the Minister providing a bit of an update on how that naming process goes.
And I guess I'll just carry up the valley, and I'll start with the river named after Alexander Mackenzie. Fine explorer. You know, he did some good mapping. But ultimately his claim to that river is that it wasn't leading to the Pacific. So I'm just wondering if, you know, many of us don't refer to the Mackenzie River by that name. We use Deh Cho already. I'm wondering if there are any plans to remove the Mackenzie River name? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And if the Member doesn't like the "Mackenzie River," he can use any of the other six official names. The Mackenzie River, in 2015, wasn't renamed per se but there were names added to it. So a single geographical feature can have multiple names, and they are all official, each one as official as the next. And so the Mackenzie River does have a number of official names. Can be used in official documents. So that work has already happened. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Yellowknife North.
Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I think there would be one last step in that perhaps is to just give it five official names and we could knock "Mackenzie" off the list there.
And similarly, I'd propose that for the mountains. I actually don't think many people know that the Mackenzie Mountains is not Alexander Mackenzie, the explorer; it's Alexander Mackenzie, the second prime minister, you know, well known for the Indian Act, an architect of Indigenous people's genocide. So I'm wondering if there are any plans to work with I recognize that one, it borders with the Yukon so we have to work with the Canadian geographic naming people whether there's any plans to rename the Mackenzie Mountains in the works? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And we have the Mackenzie Mountains. There's Mackenzie Islands, Mackenzie Island, another Mackenzie Island. And they're all named after different people. So we have quite a few different features in the territory. We are 1.3 million square kilometres after all, and we can't do everything at once. So we are not in the process of actively pursuing community support for changing names because that has to come from the community. If that came from the community, we would be happy to do that as per the policy.
And I will point out there are over 400 Indigenous names that the department is currently working to make official for different geographical features in the territory. So there is a lot of work happening on this front right now. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Inuvik Twin Lakes.
