Frieda Martselos

In closing, Madam Speaker, at the end of the day, I am happy that the Government of the Northwest Territories has the Affirmative Action Policy. However, as I just outlined, there are still some real gaps within this policy that must be filled. This policy was meant to provide Indigenous people an equal footing with non-Indigenous people in the public service. It has helped with that, but until Indigenous employment reaches 50 percent to match the overall Indigenous population of the NWT, we have not hit our mark. I will have questions for the Minister of Human Resources later today. Thank you...

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I stand before you today to say I support this supplementary. I support this supplementary because the mayor of the town of Fort Smith, the chief of the Salt River First Nation, and the president of the Fort Smith Metis Nation are all in support of this supplementary. They are in support of the secretariat. I was in contact with them as early as yesterday. Safety of individuals and a community and the Northwest Territories is extremely important. I think you have to look down South, and you see how things changed in the second wave. A lot of the Aboriginal communities...

Does the Minister agree that it's all right for poachers to go on reserve lands and kill wildlife, that they do not enforce anything on reserve lands? I would like to know if the Minister agrees with that. We are members of the Northwest Territories, and we have rights. Wouldn't you agree, Minister?

Madam Speaker, I want to be able to ask the Minister of Lands: what is the Minister's policy on enforcement, for enforcement on reserve lands?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think we had a briefing on this whole item at one of our meetings. My concern is that there is no enforcement on reserve at the Salt River First Nation reserve. We have to follow all these rules, like the Wildlife Act and some of these other things, and we do not have any way of enforcing but they want us to follow the act. I want to make sure that the Minister knows about this issue. I think I mentioned it to you during the business plans, and then we put these positions in other places. It's a major issue for both reserves. Enforcement on reserve is not -- the...

Madam Speaker, will the Minister admit that this whole situation could have been handled better, and will he commit to improving the decision-making process for future decisions like this issue? Thank you, Madam Speaker.

Can the Minister explain why his department decided to initiate the new minimum rent cost for land leaseholders all at once rather than a gradual approach as done with taxes?

Madam Speaker, your Standing Committee on Government Operations is pleased to provide its report on the review of the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 Annual Reports of the Official Languages Commissioner and commends it to this House.

The Standing Committee on Government Operations has reviewed the 2017-2018 and 2018-2019 Annual Reports of the Official Languages Commissioner. The committee thanks Mrs. Shannon Gullberg, the Official Languages Commissioner, for her appearance on October 26, 2020.

The Official Languages Act requires the Commissioner to prepare annual reports. These reports include...

I have no other comment.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I am going to be supporting this expenditure, and I am doing it because I have just been in contact in the last 10 minutes to reinforce exactly what the three leaders have said in the community of Fort Smith: the chief of the Salt River First Nation says they support the secretariat; the Fort Smith Metis Nation support the secretariat; and I was also in contact with the mayor of the Town of Fort Smith. I will be supporting the supplementary in full.

I know there are other issues that are of concern, especially the housing issue. Because the housing issue is a major...