Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, earlier I spoke to a letter sent by the land and water boards to the Ministers of ECE and the federal minister. Mr. Speaker, is the Minister open to coming to the table to meet with the boards as they have requested? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I made some comments in my opening comments about the various kind of -- the sort of crisis that is being faced at NTHSSA, and I think I don't need to repeat those comments but was hoping to get a response back from the Minister and the department on ideas they are bringing forward to address these kind of issues.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And, you know, I appreciate that the Premier is trying to kind of keep us on the topic of the Justice department itself I guess. I mean, I'm really just looking for an acknowledgement, I guess, that, you know, that there's a lot more to this problem than what the justice system can do, right. So we're talking about -- yeah, when I speak to wholistic solutions, I was kind of hoping for a bit more there. But if the Premier wants to elaborate, he can, or we can kind of pursue this issue with other departments.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My first question is just on the First Nations policing. So in March 2024, the Office of the Auditor General issued a performance audit on the First Nations and Inuit Policing Program. The audit found that Public Safety Canada and the RCMP have not worked in partnership with Indigenous communities to provide equitable access to policing services, nor to deliver tailored policing services. So significant concerns exist around whether requirements set out in policing agreements are being met and whether the program is achieving its intended results. My first question is...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions on page 308, the offender reintegration program, I notice the budget is not changing year over year here. Page 206 of the business plan -- I'll just give you guys a second to find it.

So on page 206 of the business plan, it speaks to a mandate commitment ensuring that policies and programs are designed and renewed with a trauma-informed, antiracist, and cultural safety lens. So corrections programming that supports offender rehabilitation and reintegration back into their home communities. The measure is number of offenders completing programming. The target...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I didn't hear an explicit commitment to sit down with the boards. I would encourage the Minister that simply sitting down and having a discussion is all I'm asking for at this point.

Mr. Speaker, does the Minister have a response to the board's letter to share with the House today recognizing the letter did just come in, but I just wanted to ask the question. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in the previous sitting of this Assembly, I spoke to the problem of lack of clarity in the NWT waters regulations and the issues this problem is causing in our regulatory system. I spoke to arguments which had been made during a review of this issue which noted that amendments to the regs could help to alleviate some longstanding issues with relation to predictability, expediency, and fairness in the system.

On February 28th, I questioned the Minister on this, and he suggested these issues could be solved through interpretation of the regulations as opposed...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my question is for the Minister of Infrastructure. It's quite simple. Will the Minister of Infrastructure bring forward accessibility legislation for the NWT during the life of the 20th Assembly?

Just getting the clock going there. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Just a very, very quick comment, and I actually don't even need a response to this. I just wanted to note that I was very happy to see I'll wait a second here.

Sorry, Mr. Chair. Actually, I have a question. Noting that the reduction to community justice committees and projects, can the Minister speak to that a little bit?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And that is understandable, so I won't continue to push on that one. But just moving one item down on the same page in the business plan, exploring options to support economic reconciliation. Certainly, I was I had the privilege of sitting in on the Indigenous economic forum that occurred in April, and I was very excited by what I was hearing there. And I just note that the again, like, speaking to measures and targets, the measures that we have here are a number of funding agreements. And I don't think we've really identified a target in terms of what are we trying to...