Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the issues I raised up around foreign investments in our minerals industry, the House of Commons committee on industry and trade is seeking a national security review into Vital Metals' sale shares of Vital Metals sold to a stateowned company under the Investment Canada act. The Minister the federal minister of industry has said he will block the sale of Canadian assets to stateowned enterprises. So my question for our industry Minister, industry, tourism and investment that is, is do we have a similar mechanism to assess security risks that are coming from foreign investment here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you very much. I'll respond to many things; that's okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we don't have a similar mechanism to that. We here in the Northwest Territories, that type of responsibility would fall to the federal government under the Investment Canada Act and if they choose to do a review and they need the support of the GNWT, ITI would certainly participate in any means that they needed us to. Thank you.
Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And obviously foreign affairs or global affairs is a federal responsibility, but it seems that given the interest in these minerals, and all critical minerals, that we ought to consider this issue. So is the Minister looking into how we can assess investment and maybe work with Ottawa behind the scenes on these kind of investments and whether or not they are in the best interests of Northerners. Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, what I want to start off by saying actually here is that I actually want to thank the Member for giving me the opportunity to speak about this on the floor of the House. I know this is something that has been in I like to talk a lot, Mr. Speaker. Okay. Okay, right to it, then.
Foreign investment is not all bad, Mr. Speaker. Foreign investment is something that Canada relies on, and foreign investment is something that our critical mineral mining absolutely relies on right now. And so what I can say to the Member right now is we are constantly monitoring all of our investments in all of the companies that operate within the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you. And to be clear, no one's antiinvestment here but what we want is the right kind of investment. And when we know we have an adversarial government with a strangle hold on the market, this requires some new policy tools. The Yukon has a security council that's been created. Will the Minister work with the Premier to create a similar council to assess these kind of concerns? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories is well aware of the securities council that the government of Yukon has put in place. We were excited to see some of the names on that council because those are people that we have had the opportunity to work with here at the Government of the Northwest Territories in the past and that we look forward very much to seeing the results of that securities council. But as far as what the Premier will choose to do, that question would have to go to the Premier. I can say, though, that we have priority setting next week and this might be a topic of conversation next week for all of caucus. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of ITI. Final supplementary. Member for Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a helpful thing if we could build that into our priorities. What is the Minister doing to ensure we attract the right kind of investment from friendly sources in the United States and Europe? Thank you.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we just had the opportunity as Cabinet well, there was four of us, plus we also had another MLA from the other side, the MLA for the Sahtu, that went down to Roundup in the last month. We had the opportunity to speak to many different players, so to speak, in the critical minerals and mineral extraction field and landscape. I also have the opportunity in the next month to travel to Ottawa where I will still be continuing to have conversations with private industry, with Indigenous governments, and also with the federal government. And all of these topics that we discuss here are going to be discussions that continue there.
Mr. Speaker, I think it's also really important in this conversation to reiterate that one of the most important things about this is relationships, and relationships are paramount when it comes to operating in the Northwest Territories. And that was a message that we delivered loud and clear when we were at Roundup and speaking with industry in Vancouver last month. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of ITI. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.
