Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Salt River First Nation was one of the Indigenous groups that had signed on to the Memorandum of Understanding process and, along with the GNWT and other Indigenous governments who are in the area affected by energy generation potentially, and who would therefore have potentially an interest in participating in the design of the program. There have been two steering committee meetings thus far of this group; however, at the first one Salt River First Nation decided they did not want to participate in the MOU process.

That is certainly their prerogative...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Mineral Resource Act regulations project is really quite massive, and obviously it contains I shouldn't say obviously. It contains quite a number of different components, and putting all those components together with a schedule in and of itself has taken some effort, even as the different pieces have advanced.

So what I can say, Mr. Speaker, firstly, there is, I believe, an outstanding offer to brief standing committee about this work. I'm again happy to reiterate that offer and to give that briefing and to ensure that that is made available, and in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, if I recall correctly, the first time this came up last spring we had made efforts to ensure that meetings were going to be posted in a public fashion, and I do believe that it was actually last session in December that I had informed the Assembly again of the intention to make these summaries public. Putting up some notes on the website is not normally the kind of thing around which I would be doing formal news releases or otherwise but happy to have the information out here. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, it is in the role as the Minister of Finance, along with the Minister of Infrastructure, that we are the two of us are collectively on the steering committee which is as part of the memorandum of understanding. The memorandum of understanding is an opportunity to really approach the design of the project differently. So we're at still a very early stage. We're at the stage of kind of conceptualizing what this could look like, what the project might be. And going through the MOU process is really an exciting opportunity to engage Indigenous governments at the front...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Absolutely, I could not agree more wholeheartedly. The Taltson Hydro facility, and obviously it's one of the big three infrastructure projects that the entire Legislative Assembly has prioritized for this, for our 19th Assembly. It is part of the 2030 Energy Strategy. It is an opportunity for equity participation by Indigenous governments. This project has quite a number of potential of reasons of why it can be a dramatic change to the economic landscape, and I most certainly agree with the statement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I don't know that there could be a better set of first questions, certainly not coming to me.

Applause

That's a statement about consensus government. That's how we do government here. We're going to sit down, and that's where the consultations take place, is that we sit down, we talk, we learn from each other, and I am very happy to do that. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. And Madam Speaker, so individual departments, of course, will have the reporting obligations to their counterparts in the federal government. And as we go through the review department by department, starting I think later today, we'll have I would certainly encourage everyone in the House to engage exactly in that dialogue of, you know, what is that we have to report back to the federal government on, what is perhaps the nature of that reporting, and, you know, always open to having the conversation about whether we are providing enough information as is available...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I'm conscious of time on this one, I have to admit. Yes, I'm struggling with where to start.

So we have quite a number of programs that we do provide to employees, some that were introduced to as additional items in the course of the COVID19 pandemic. I think really, though, Madam Speaker, this is a much bigger issue. I can say that I had inquired with the department and the conversation around morale which is related perhaps in part, though certainly doesn't encompass everything that I know is specific to mental health but about that wellness of...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, there's not a category of leave that is specific to stress or mental health leave. We do, of course, track and are aware of general sick leave but the specific reasons that someone might be on sick leave is, for I suspect fairly reasonable privacy reasons, that's not something that we are tracking. Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Thank you, Madam Speaker. Madam Speaker, I am more than happy to address this. We've done, actually in some ways, actually, this is exactly the kind of thing I was speaking to. We do want to be influencing where we are in five to ten years, and that does mean we need to be taking action today for Indigenous recruitment and retention. That is why we've moved forward on the Indigenous Recruitment and Retention Framework. That was released earlier or I guess a few months ago now, and we've had an opportunity to speak to committee about that and have public review of that alongside committee...