Shauna Morgan

Okay, thank you, Madam Chair. So I guess my next question is there are clearly some items that are at least being contemplated in the action plan that we're not prepared to fund. Can the Minister explain why we would put items into our own action plan but not put aside the funding to actually action them? What's the point of having actions in our own action plan that we can't do because we won't fund them? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay. Thanks to the Minister for that update. There's another recommendation around increasing ECC's internal capacity for staff who have competency with wildfire modeling. So I'm wondering whether there's anything in the budget here related to systems purchases or improvements to forecast and model wildlife behaviour or training for staff, for that matter. Can the Minister clarify whether that's on the agenda for this year. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, today I'd like to reflect on what makes the NWT different from other parts of Canada in ways that are both maddening and also beautiful. Even looking to our neighbour territories, each has a more unified sense of identity either because there's a common Indigenous government or the population's concentrated in a capital region. But the NWT has a collection of 33 communities, and it often seems that each one wants to go its own separate way, find its own unique solution, and even sometimes groups divided up within communities want different things.

I think...

Thank you, Madam Chair. I'll leave it there for now, but I do hope to follow up with a Member's statement and questions later on this session. Thanks for your patience and for letting us come back to this one. Thank you.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So thank you for that answer, for the detailed answer. So just to clarify, though, that during proceedings, during the public portion of an environmental assessment when, you know, evidence is being presented, like, those subject-matter experts and maybe they're, you know, water scientists, hydrologists, or maybe they're biologists, do they -- do they get to publicly present the information they have that they think it's important to know about the potential impacts, say, of a road, or are those presentations -- you said that they get to inform infrastructure officials...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can you also clarify, so they're in charge of the administration of public land. Is that land only outside of municipal boundaries and does it include, like, settlement lands that have been settled within Indigenous land claims? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. So I'll -- my final question here, my colleague was talking about the environmental audit, and we see here that there's no money at least listed in the budget to cover the cost of doing the NWT environmental audit. And my impression was that this was a year when we were going to be doing a new audit. Can the Minister explain whether we are intending to do the environmental audit independent review this coming year, and if so, where the money's going to be coming from. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Okay. Thanks for that. That's something we can follow up on in our discussions.

Under the transboundary waters -- the line item under transboundary waters, can the Minister explain why last year's revised estimates went way up to $1.18 million. Perhaps just jog our memory, and then why we're back down to 285 for this coming year. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Is it fair to conclude that the number has gone up and down so much from year to year because of variations in federal funding for certain programs; is that correct to conclude? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Can the Minister or his staff give any more details as to what are these big programs that are about to roll out that we should be looking for? Thank you, Madam Chair.