Caroline Cochrane

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's an easy commitment. Absolutely, I can. All chiefs out there know that they can reach me. My life is pretty basic, go to work and go home. So they can reach me any evening and every weekend.

And I will make the commitment that I will call Chief Antoine this evening. If not Chief Antoine, I don't know what will happen, but tomorrow at the latest. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Well, I do know Chief Antoine does have my number, and any chief can actually call me at any time. They also know that it's difficult to reach me during the days, and I think that's what the issue might be more so.

But, again, I did hear them. And I did have conversations with the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, and both of us agree that we need to be more concerned about the people on the ground. So we did have conversations, and we are looking. Actually, we will be bringing in either  I'm not sure what the term is, a pathfinder, a system's navigator...

Mr. Speaker, I want to begin by welcoming all my colleagues back to the Chamber for this sitting of the 19th Legislative Assembly. I look forward to providing updates on key issues and mandate priorities, as well as hearing from Regular Members on issues important to residents over the course of the next seven sitting days.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to take some time to talk about community, about how that term has a renewed meaning not only with trying to address COVID 19, but also in the last few weeks due to the impacts of flooding in many regions in the Northwest Territories. It has been...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I'd like to say the Emerging Stronger package will be done now, and it could have been done two months ago and put out there if I was going to take 100 percent control. And that would not be appropriate. We've talked about partnerships.

So I do know that people are waiting for it. I want to say that on March 26th, quite awhile ago actually, we presented the draft of the Emerging Stronger to the Accountability and Oversight Committee. So I'm hoping that all Members had seen that draft at that time.

We got a response back, and a revised...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As the Member is aware in seeing the draft document, that some of the things, absolutely, have budget lines to them. There are some things that are and were not priorities. Universal Childcare, we never had that before. Those things are in our priorities already. Those things have action plans. They have things attached.

Some of them, Mr. Speaker, will not be, have budgets attached to them at that time; they will have to go through the process that we all go through, the mains and the infrastructure or the capital. So until those processes are done, you won...

Mr. Speaker, a fundamental part of our success as a government, and the future prosperity of our territory, depends on a productive and collaborative partnership with Indigenous governments. We must foster constructive and respective relationships with our Indigenous leaders and, to seek ways to advance reconciliation, recognize and affirm Indigenous rights and support expanded program and service delivery.

It gives me great pleasure to update Members of the 19th Legislative Assembly on the Intergovernmental Council's recent adoption of the legislative development protocol for lands and...

I would like to defer that question to the Minister of Health and Social Services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I have had discussions with Premier Silver from the Yukon Territory. He is more than interested in having exemptions for residents to go across the border. We are, as well, interested in that. However, I have to put it out there: Premier Silver has let me know that, if he was to consider having an exemption, not a bubble, but an exemption, then he would not be okay with us closing the border when they open up to British Columbia; and in conversations, it will only be a couple of weeks, he's assuming, before they open up to British Columbia. At this time, that is the underlying factor that is...

I do know that we have a long-term energy strategy. However, it is not done in my portfolio. It is the Minister of Infrastructure, so I'd like to defer the questions to the Minister of Infrastructure.

Absolutely, we have been having discussions with our CPHO around what will happen when the majority of residents in the NWT get vaccinated; 75 percent is herd immunity. However, there is still a population, there are still people who have not, will not, or cannot get immunized, and we have a whole population of children who we don't have a vaccine for. The major factor is actually that they're not projecting that the vaccines will be delivered in the South until late fall, September, so we have serious concerns. There is not enough research. My understanding is that, even if we have the...