Julian Morse

Thank you, Mr. Chair; I appreciate your indulgence.

Mr. Chair, I wanted to turn now to the Taltson expansion pre-construction. I know we spent $7.1 million on it last year. We've got $11 million to spend this year. Similar to the question I asked about the Mackenzie Valley environmental assessment, does the Minister have offhand how much we've spent on Taltson expansion pre-construction to date.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. And I appreciate that. And is that report something that MLAs can have access to or already do have access to? Thanks.

Okay. And is there not going to be a replacement of that program?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And the third one there -- and I do forgive the Minister because I had listed a lot there -- was the drug treatment option program, if he could just list the success associated with that one.

Okay, thank you, Mr. Chair. I don't want to dwell too long on the past on this one. I just want to note that I hope we are learning some lessons here. I think that the EA process is a process that proceeds much more efficiently when a developer has the good sense of what their project is and has a solid project description and is ready to proceed to EA. So I would just note maybe we can learn from this lesson that dragging out an EA is an expensive process, and it eats up a lot of resources for everybody involved. And so I hope we're learning from that.

So to that end, I would just ask the...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. So that is good news. And I will just make sure -- so, yeah, I probably should have asked specific questions about each line item rather than jumping around. So the victim assistance support projects, that's over $2 million reduction. What are we losing there?

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I wanted to ask about a few different programs that are run, I believe, out of court services - the wellness court, drug treatment option program, and the intimate partner violence treatment option court. Are those under this page? Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just wanted to first speak to the Mackenzie Valley Highway environmental assessment and planning.

I note that in 2025-2026, we spent $11 million. This year, we're spending $3.5 million. Can the department give us an idea of the total amount the department has spent over the term of this environmental assessment that has been spent to date.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. There's a number of reductions in here in the -- sorry, Mr. Chair, just getting oriented here.

There's a reduction of about $1.7 million to victim services and a significant reduction of over $2 million to victim assistance support projects. So can the Minister help us understand what happened with all those projects, and -- yeah.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I do remember that project now that they mention it.

Next question: A Yellowknife Courthouse security post for the sheriff officer has been included as adjustment in the main estimates. Can you provide details on how this will support current court services and why it's necessary. Thank you.