Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I don't think I will get the same magic that my previous colleague just got, but I will give it a shot. My questions are to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. It goes to my comments earlier from my Member's statement on the Teck decision to withdraw.
I want to speak a little bit about the transboundary water agreement with NWT and Alberta. I really thought about this for the last couple of days. I was really surprised at the amount of silence we had from that end of the Chamber. It concerned me because I know that if we had a large project in the territories and the water spilled the other way, and we had any sort of environmental impact going the other way into Alberta, I guarantee you the Alberta government would be saying something right now. I guarantee you some other government organizations would come back, and there would be some backlash to that.
My question to the Minister is: what benefits did the NWT receive as part of this NWT-Alberta Transboundary Water Agreement? Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiiledeh. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes. Does that answer it because it makes everybody happy? Sorry. What benefits? We have a relationship with the Alberta government, and we are able to work with them. We have the ability of first response on these issues. Again, when the quality, quantity, or the biology is an issue, we have to get the information first. We get that information, and we are able to work with the people of the Government of Alberta, to make sure this is it.
We have also been able to have correspondence and work together. I have already reached out to the Government of Alberta and the federal minister to make sure that these transboundary agreements are in place. We have that relationship. That is something we are able to deal with. As for the comment about other projects, if it was going south, I can't comment on that, because we don't do that. The water comes north from Alberta. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you for the response, or kind of the lack of it. There was still silence and a lot of radio silence from the ENR Department for this whole development. Going back to the agreement, in my research, I found out that the Indigenous governments largely have observer status. My question to the Minister is: are there any plans to have Indigenous governments play more of an active role moving forward with our transboundary water agreement with Alberta?
Indigenous governments and organizations are involved in NWT-wide, community-based water quality and monitoring programs, which includes 21 partner communities across the territories. Regular engagement meetings include the annual water strategy implementation workshops with water partners across the territories; seeking input on the monitoring program and aiming to build capacity for communities to take an active role in the water monitoring.
Just to make it real short and simple, we engage with Indigenous governments and communities. They are a part of this whole process. It is just not the department. It is actually the collective as the NWT. We actually do engage with them as we make decisions.
Thank you for the response. You mentioned a little bit about monitoring. I guess my question is: does ENR have any funds earmarked for environmental monitoring as part of this transboundary water agreement?
I may not have heard the question correctly, but I think we are talking about: do we have money that ENR helps with getting Indigenous governments involved? We do. We have funding for participants that includes honorariums, travel for the participants to engage in meetings, training sessions, and hands-on training opportunities. ENR involves community members in water monitoring programs as much as possible, including co-development of some programs, for example, the fish monitoring program for the Slave River.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.
