Wally Schumann

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I think what I can commit to doing is I am going to have to talk to the Minister of Finance because, at the end of the day, the carryover will fall through him. I can commit to having a conversation with the Minister of Finance on if this is something that we can do in future budgeting cycles. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If we are going to sit here and play on words, let's make it quite clear. I have been mandated to access funding for the Slave Geological Province road. That is a part of my mandate commitment. It is in the mandate agreed by all Members in this House. We are out there clearly trying to get funding for the Slave Geological Province, and Frank Channel bridge is clearly part of the application for the Slave Geological Province. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

As I said, there are some serious concerns of safety around this, as I said. As a Minister, I am not quite prepared to look at it. If we were to even discuss having someone in Lutselk'e have a look at this thing, it is going to cost some money. That would have to go through the budgetary process. That is a discussion that I can have with the Member going forward. That is going to be up to the 19th Legislative Assembly, if we were to look at budgeting for something like that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

This will remain to be seen. It depends on the O and M on this project and federal funding going forward. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 37, An Act to Amend the Oil and Gas Operations Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Technology, energy, and green metals are already on the radar, particularly of this Government of the Northwest Territories, and particularly of our department, through the NWT Geological Survey. We are trying to get a better understanding of what role that the Northwest Territories and our resources can play in this global movement towards these types of resources. The early work on the knowledge economy has also identified the importance of leveraging and taking advantage of the world demand of green metals, and I am definitely prepared to find opportunities to work with my colleagues and...

As you know, we introduced our bill here last week, so I want to speak very carefully about what I am going to talk about here, because it is in the standing committee's preview right now of the bill.

In our bill, we proposed benefit agreements, not impact benefit agreements. There is already a process laid out for that, and that is through the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act. When you look at our proposed bill, the benefits side of things, we want to make --

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. All resource projects in the Northwest Territories are reviewed in the same laid-out regulatory regime that we have within the Northwest Territories, according to their scale and scope. We have a multifaceted regulatory system in the Northwest Territories. There is a process to adjust the requirements and make changes within that process, but also, in the Northwest Territories, we have a lot of players. We have the Government of the Northwest Territories and our departments; we have the federal government and their departments; and we have Indigenous governments in the...

Mr. Speaker, I move, seconded by the honourable Member for Thebacha, that Bill 36, An Act to Amend the Petroleum Resource Act, be read for the first time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well, as I said, the bill is with the standing committee, and in it is a benefits agreement, not an impact benefit agreement, as clearly laid out, as I said, in the process under the Mackenzie Valley Resource Management Act.