Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I had heard the Member's statement earlier with respect to the junction between Fort Resolution and Fort Smith and did already begin to inquire of the Department of Infrastructure as to what previous studies might have been done. I can say we do monitor accident reports along all the stretches of highway in order to determine if there is a need for different types of signage. And, Mr. Speaker, I'm pleased to say that Highway No. 6 has actually not had any reported events or collisions since 1989. So in terms of any significant or serious injuries, I'm sure...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was not the Minister in the 19th Assembly. I'm happy to see if there was a study done on that stretch of road and to share whatever outcomes or recommendations there are with the Member for the region. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the affirmative action policy also had groups and people who were not recognized who may have been left out from some sort of priority status, and it really was one policy that was being used to solve a multitude of different problems rather than what we've now tried to get to which is a place of having multiple different policies that are, you know, all being used as a suite within the department of human resources -- or Department of Finance and human resources. So the Indigenous employment policy looks at priority hiring for Indigenous Northerners and...

Mr. Speaker, today I want to describe how key infrastructure projects are helping support our government's commitment to building strong relationships with Indigenous governments.

A key example of this collaboration is the Taltson Hydro Expansion. This project is being advanced though a memorandum of understanding agreement between the Government of the Northwest Territories and Indigenous governments with traditional territory in the Taltson watershed; namely, the Northwest Territory Metis Nation, the Akaitcho Dene First Nations, and Salt River First Nation.

Regular meetings at the leadership...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. It's not that the department doesn't have legal opinions over the last 35 years; however, I just won't be putting forward legal opinions that are subject to solicitor-client privilege here on the floor of the House. Mr. Speaker, certainly happy to sit down and engage further about the various risks that go into determining policy. I'm not going to speak to what Quebec may or may not do. And there is a significant difference in the application of, you know -- if where this was going was some suggestion around, you know, what kind of risk mitigation strategies one might...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm happy to return to Lutselk'e. It's always a good experience to be there, a very pleasant and beautiful community, especially if it's fishing season, but certainly happy to go back and further these conversations.

Similarly, Mr. Speaker, not that long ago myself and Minister Macdonald were able to meet with YKDFN, both chiefs, in the community of Dettah. Also happy to go back. I expressed at the time that more of those meetings would be good. It took a long time to find a time then. I don't want a lot of time to pass before we can do a follow-up on that...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, pre-feasibility studies are not free. They do involve expenditure of public funds. And now the pre-feasibility study I was being asked about earlier was for a road across Great Slave Lake to the tune of, again, even just preliminary estimates, being 7 to $8 million every year because the road, of course, melts every single year, and now there's pre-feasibility studies for several other additional projects.

Mr. Speaker, again, on the fly, that's several significant expenditures of public funds for projects that I really don't have a good estimate on other...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that's a very fair question. We, in fact, do build -- that estimate I was given of sort of 7, $8 million, based on the cost of the Tlicho region winter roads; a significant difference being in the Tlicho region, the winter roads are over ice crossings whereas to Lutselk'e, we are looking at crossing Great Slave Lake, which is obviously a huge body of water, behaves extremely differently. There's significant winds, significant movement on a very deep lake. Pressure ridges develop. There's high risks of having open water at any given moment. Significant...

Mr. Speaker, to complete this week, recognizing some of the achievements from Yellowknife South constituents, I am including today Dr. Ryan Connon who received the Government of Canada Emergency Management Exemplary Service Award in February. Dr. Connon is part of a three-person team, including Dr. Anna Coles and Shawne Kokelj, who, since 2020, have made up the Department of Environment and Climate Change's hydrology team. They work diligently to provide situational updates on river breakup and open water flood risks to the GNWT and to affected communities and residents.

Mr. Speaker, their work...

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, it really certainly does fulfill both. Certainly the drive and putting that much money into it is an economic driver but it also supports local artists, and it's an incredible mentorship opportunity. I had the great joy of going recently out on to one of these film sets and was absolutely tickled to see that there was multiple staff members who are grown up in the territory who had come back to mentor other people within the industry who were working on the film set as well. And so it was really neat to have this cohort of Northerners kind of come...