Caroline Wawzonek

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can do better than a 'yes', I can say that we've already done that. So, and I'm happy to continue those meetings, Mr. Speaker. I'm not totally surprised at the announcement that came yesterday. We don't necessarily always know but I certainly had a sense that that might be a direction that these parties might be going. I was thrilled to see it. I think that's a good move for the Northwest Territories. I am excited to see what will come with it and always happy to know if there's an opportunity for the government to participate in projects such as this one...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories has not suggested that we're going to mine our way out of the climate crisis. In fact the responsibility for climate change, that the climate change action plan sits with my colleague behind me but all of the departments, the LNR department, Lands and Natural Resources and ITI, we are working together collectively to see what opportunities we have to be part of adapting to climate change, responding to climate change, and that's really where the critical minerals part fits in for us, is that it's an opportunity...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am more than thrilled to speak about this. It's a topic that, you know, a little over a year ago when I took over this portfolio, critical minerals, although a huge issue in the world, wasn't necessarily being talked about with the same vigor as it is now here in the territories so I am thrilled to say that we had this workshop. I am very pleased that the Member was able to attend. And most definitely there will be a "what we heard" report.

I am happy we got to the place of having a workshop with such a variety of attendees. But that's just that's really...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, I have enough responsibility but. But, Mr. Speaker, so various forms of this question have been asked I think through the week and, again, I want to ensure colleagues in the room, but particularly the public service, that we do take it very seriously well, two things we take very seriously is first of all the collective agreement and our relationship with the union, which means whatever we're doing in this front certainly needs to involve engagement with the union before we make any policy changes or any proposed changes that would impact on those processes which are...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Employee Engagement Satisfaction Survey is actually done roughly every two years, and it was postponed when there was collective bargaining back in 2018 and then postponed with COVID19 so it is actually a regularly done survey.

As for what has been done with it in the past, this is the first one that's coming to me so I can't speak to what may or may not have happened to it in the past, but it's the first one that I'm going to see. And Mr. Speaker, Minister Green and myself have met already before the current crisis facing the obstetrics unit. We have...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, this is right now what's on what's on paper here is the anticipated extension to the Mackenzie Valley fibre line, and so indeed if that proceeds, it would just be an extension of that. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, so it was Nechalacho that had come and used the site for their demobilization work, if I'm thinking correctly of the right event. And, yeah, and there are interests or options now by one of the existing gold mine operations, Gold Terra, looking at the Con Mine site. So there is a lot happening in that very specific geographical spot.

And I think what I can do at this point is simply to say that, you know, obviously we do maintain, as ITI contact, with all of those different entities and partners and can let them know that there's this potential for them to have...

[Audio]

Thank you, Madam Chair. So Madam Chair, I agree with the comments earlier. This isn't actually a really positive and important transparency to all.

What triggers the obligation to book an asset under the asset retirement obligations is the fact that there's a legal obligation to do something with that asset. So it, you know, really doesn't change it doesn't change the legal obligation. It doesn't create the legal obligation. But there is now a number that an MLA who wishes to hold the government to account can point to and say, hey, you've got this asset booked and there's a certain estimate...

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there's and actually I there's I mean, there's a variety of different economic spinoffs that come. There's economic impacts for capital spending that come in the form of anticipated GDP impacts of almost $200 million. There's also labor income that comes over of a hundred million dollars. And then the taxation income that the government gets on people who not on people, but on the taxes people are paying when they are employed. So there's quite a high number of also 944 jobs are anticipated from this kind of a capital spend.

You know, and those of...