Merci, Monsieur le President. I know the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources just got off an interesting phone call with the Alberta environment Minister, and I'm just wondering if he might be able to provide an update to the House on that conversation? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I did take some notes from that meeting so I'm just going to read them here.
Mr. Speaker, we spoke about the importance of sharing water our shared water to the NWT residents and the communities. We talked about some of the concerns that residents in the communities have downstream of the oil sands. We spoke about the importance of honouring the commitment of the Bilateral Water Management Agreement. We also spoke about the critical importance of being notified about development that might affect the ecological integrity of our water share. And we spoke about the importance of transparency, information sharing, and the continued need for robust monitoring that is essential for building public trust. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that, keeping notes and giving us the update. I'm just wondering if he can tell us whether there was any acknowledgement of noncompliance with the transboundary water agreement or an apology? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can advise you that the Alberta Minister recognized that there was a failure to communicate on the issue. There was a lot of finger pointing through this whole process and I can tell you she just found out this February. So she was similar into the same boat as us there. We talked about working together to improve how we implement the transboundary agreement. Again, it's about the wording and that so we've made that commitment to do that. And we've also committed to have a facetoface meeting sometime in April, whether it's the 13th or 18th. We're just working on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I think it was yesterday maybe it was the day before, I raised the issue of, you know, public engagement on the development of any new tailings discharge regulations, how we've hired consultants, they give us reports, all of that is secret. We don't know what's being said behind closed doors. I know that's a trigger word but I'm just wondering, Mr. Speaker, if this issue of public engagement and the development of these discharge regulations was raised with the Minister in Alberta during the call? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I took the heat from the Members on the other side during their business plan and that, and I did bring it forth to raise the concerns with her about the House that development regulations for the release of oil sand tailings need to be transparent and public, and we need to be engaged moving forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Final supplementary. Member for Frame Lake.
Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I'm just wondering if he can tell us if there's any real concrete outcomes? I understand he's going to meet with the Minister facetoface in April. That's a good thing. But, you know, did he secure a commitment from the Minister in Alberta that there would be public engagement in the development of these tailings discharge regulations? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the first thing is we made the commitment to do the facetoface meeting. That's the important part of it. She has also committed to sharing information on the seepage and spills moving forward. So we'll make sure we have a robust process in getting that information to us. They also agreed that the dispute resolution provision of our bilateral agreement is the right tool to resolve the matter and set a plan to avoid this kind of incident in the future so we're doing dispute mechanism. She has agreed to that. She's looking forward to enhancing the transboundary agreement. She sees some hiccups there that we have addressed and that we're moving forward on that. So she's made a commitment. I'm looking forward to meeting with her in April. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.
