Shane Thompson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Member for the question. The department has been engaging with Indigenous governments and organizations for many years as part of the development and implementation of the TransMonitoring Water Agreement and the Water Stewardship Strategy. I've met with Indigenous leadership about the transboundary water agreement implementation and I've heard concerns from communities and residents about the proposed development regulations authorizing and the release of treated tailing water. ENR provides regular updates and seeks input from the NWT strategy Indigenous...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, demonstrating her strength of will, independence, and sass right to the end of her welllived 48 years, Sherri Lynn Thomson passed away Monday, December 6th.

Born in Yorkton September 15th, 1973, the third child of Graham and Linda's four children, Sherri spent her earliest years in southern Saskatchewan with her family before settling in 1977 on the PFRM farm.

Sherri developed a passion for hockey, participated in minor hockey programs, and from grade 10 to 12, played for the Fort Saskatchewan First Team culminating with a trip to the Canada Winter Games in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I've already met with the TG government, and we're more than willing just recently, with Cabinet, and I'm more than willing to meet with them. Our staff are meeting with the TG governments as we move forward.

In regards to surpluses and that from the Government of the Northwest Territories, we don't have surpluses. We don't. We're $1.5 billion in debt. We have a budget that we're using. So there is no surplus out there. If there was, we have 33 communities with 33 issues that each community has that we need to move forward on. So I can't promise the Member...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we're already focusing on the future and the present. We are working with the municipal government on this very issue. So the Member, I've given her emails showing what was going on. Yesterday I provided an update that was very current as of yesterday morning, that they met with the community and were working on trying to address that issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Member for her comment, and we'll make sure we get that messaging out there about the mobile zone.

So ENR becomes involved or notified of a potential infraction under the Wildlife Act. A renewable officer will initiate the investigation. If they believe that the animal was harvested illegally, they may then seize the caribou and start a legal process. While the investigation's underway, seized caribou are stored securely in a frozen state for evidence. As you are aware in the last budget, we are actually building another storage or building a place where we can store the seized...

Thank you, and I thank the Member for her questions. As we all are aware, the Bathurst caribou herd is facing serious conservation concerns and is currently at record low numbers. The government has worked closely with our wildlife comanagement partners to put a range of management actions in place to support the recovery of this herd. It is important to note that the Wildlife Act and the regulations differentiate between commercial hunts and outfitting hunting.

In 2006, ENR began to reduce the number of tags issued to outfitting numbers given the conservation concerns for the Bathurst herd.

Al...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I wish to table the following document: Follow-up letter to Oral Question 79819(2), land ownership issues in small communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I tried to explain to the Member, there's CIP; there's gas tax and their water and sewer. On top of it, the community gives $30 million since 2007 for the operation of it. So they have this year, they got $2.27 million for the operation of their community. So on top of it, that's where the money is. Is there new money available? No. What the community has been able to do and as of today, and this is going to take a little bit of time and I apologize it might be a Minister's statement, but MACA staff have met with the Behchoko SAO, assistant SAO, and...

Thank you. And I give the Member credit for keep on asking the question. I've had numerous emails. I've had conversations with the Chief and that.

We give money through gas tax, CIP, and we work with the communities. Through the new deal, communities make decisions on where it is. We don't have any other money. There's no slush fund out there. So the answer, quickly, shortly, no. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I said, the new deal started in 2007. So what was happening before that it was the government of the Northwest Territories were making decisions on what infrastructure was going to go into the communities. The new deal allowed the communities to make decisions. I fully support that. I think the communities make the good decisions based on the evidence they had.

In 2013, the department wrote a letter to the municipality saying you need to look at some of these decisions; here's a potential future problem that could happen. These things happen. We...