Marci cho, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I made a Member's statement about homecare and was going to ask the Minister of Health questions on homecare, but the Minister of ITI trumped my Member's statement with the Taltson statement, so I have questions for him. I would like to ask the Minister of ITI if, during any Indigenous engagement, he would present the idea retrospective environmental assessment from their original project at Taltson. Thank you.
Masi. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I clearly laid out in my Minister's statement today, there are one or two things that we want to do. One of the first things we need to do is dust off some of that old work that has been previously done with the Indigenous partners that they had at the time, the Deze group. There has to be a significant amount of work that has to be done, the technical aspect of it, as well as the environmental assessment part of this that has to be revitalized, so we are going to be looking at all those things.
As I have said, we want to ensure that all the previous engineering and design work is up to date and that baseline work is where it needs to be in engaging with our Indigenous partners that are affected. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
In case in the Deze daze it hasn't been covered, I would like to ask the Minister if he is prepared to review all of the processes of approval with the original project back in the 1960s.
I don't think there is a need for us to go back to the 1960s. I can see where this line of questioning might be going, but, you know, back in the day when they built the Taltson project, that was a federal initiative. They were in charge of land and resources in the Northwest Territories at that time. We have since just passed devolution and we are moving forward with our legislation to address these things, but I don't think there is a need for us with our Indigenous partners moving this project forward to go back to the 1960s.
Maybe a simpler task would be to look at the history of Taltson River and how it related to the people that were living off the land. Would the Minister be prepared to have his department look at the history of what happened on the Taltson River prior to the construction of the Taltson River dam?
As I said, we are working with our Indigenous partners. We have also had the prior history with the Deze group, who also supported this project going forward. I have had engagement with all three Indigenous governments on the funding announcement. They are willing to participate in this. We will be going out and engaging communities on these projects and Indigenous organizations to ensure that their participation and partnership is going to help us empower this project, and we will work on that basis going forward.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister if he would be prepared to share the findings of the Indigenous engagement for the money that was issued from the federal government for that purpose. I would like to ask the Minister if he would commit today to share those findings with the Legislative Assembly. Thank you.
I'm not sure exactly what the Member is asking. We did the federal announcement. Prior to the federal announcement, I gave the Indigenous governments a heads-up. In fact, I even flew to Edmonton to meet with two of them and have discussions about them supporting this project and how we want to work on this thing going forward. There seems to be a lot of goodwill in the room on this project, and that is why we are moving forward on it. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.
