Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm encouraged by the recent consultation on the new legislation for the first ever Mineral Resources Act. This is valuable information that needs to be shared and is within the strategy, the NWT Geological Survey Strategic Plan, released this past March, Mr. Speaker. My question is: what awareness of this strategy has the department done since? Mahsi.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Geological Survey Strategic Plan, which is a five-year plan that was released this year, is a very important asset to this Government of the Northwest Territories. This information is used primarily by industry, but it's used to help inform this government, particularly around environmental land stewardship and climate change issues across this territory for any future development, and to assess the situations that are ongoing right now, such as the Highway No. 3, these types of things, with permafrost degradation and such.
We've just recently opened up the new storage facility out at the airport. We had a grand opening there and had a number of people out there participate and got to show off some of the stuff that this department does. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Part of the consultation questions I heard on the last go-around here on the new Mineral Resources Act consultation was that not everybody could afford to go to the regional centres to participate into the open houses. I'm wondering if we can take the open house sessions to the communities. Will the Minister commit to an open house session on this strategy and how it is inter-linked with other initiatives to the five Sahtu communities? It will be four, now.
Mr. Speaker, we are on the road with our consultation on this. We went to the regional centres, but this initiative that we put forward, we have an extremely important Web portal with interaction where anyone from within the industry or the Northwest Territories can interact with the department and answer a number of questions and put their thoughts forward. They have the mail-in option. They can email us. They can phone the department and we'll have someone discuss these options with them. That's our commitment, and we will continue to do that, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you for the response. Would the Minister, through the regional office, make trips of campaign informational sessions, open houses, to the four surrounding communities in the Sahtu, particular Fort Good Hope, Deline, Tulita, and Colville?
I'm not sure what the question was, but we've committed. We went out to all the regional centres. We just concluded with Behchoko here the other day. Once we develop a "what we heard" document we will be reaching back out to everybody.
It's a six-step process, and we will be also going out to section 35 consultation on this, as this has the potential of affecting Aboriginal rights and we're going to make sure we're not doing that. We will be reaching out to all of them at the same time.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My last question is: I know the department is working on that mineral conference. Would the Minister look at holding that session, if and when it happens, in the community of Tulita? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
I'll have to take that under advisement. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Nunakput.
