R.J. Simpson

Yes, Mr. Speaker. Qulliqs have been lit in the museum before, in the auditorium area. There could be arrangements made to have them lit in other areas but a bit of a head's up is needed to ensure that, you know, sprinkler systems are turned off so that we don't damage any of our artifacts and that smoke detectors perhaps are temporarily removed. And that's the situation we found ourselves in, where there just wasn't enough lead time given to make a change like that to allow for one to be lit. And it's an unfortunate incident, and I think there's we would have done things differently if we had...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And there is still a fulltime toponymist which is now known as a cultural places officer, and that was renamed about ten years ago, so still 30 years after the Member first arrived here. And then that position does all of the naming work that the Member is talking about. And it is a busy office.

There have been hundreds of name changes and new names made official in the last number of years, and currently there are 424 new and replacement names that have been submitted by the Lutselk'e Dene First Nation, and 13 Indigenous place names in the Naats'ihch'oh National Park...

In favour.

Thank you. Once again, Mr. Speaker, with a bit of head's up I might have been able to come up with some of these answers and get these very specific operational details from the RCMP. But I will have to get back to the Member. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I gave an update last week with one of my Minister's statements, and I'm always happy to discuss this exciting project. So yes, I will provide an update to the House. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The City of Yellowknife, ECE, and Aurora College have been working together to, you know, identify a site for the future polytechnic university campus in Yellowknife.

If anyone is familiar with the current campus in Yellowknife, you would know that it is small. It's cramped. It is in a location that is inconvenient for many people. There's limited parking. And there's no possibility for growth there. And so there is a need for a new campus in Yellowknife. That has been, you know, discussed many times here. And there's also need for new infrastructure in the other campus...

Abstain.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As part of the facilities master planning, students were engaged, staff were engaged, Indigenous governments were engaged, the city was engaged, and now we are in the public portion that is being run by the city. It's a city process. There will be plenty of opportunity for public input in this zoning process. And the types of things that the Member is talking about right now traffic access. Those are exactly the types of things that this established public process is going to consider. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I understand the Member's frustration. Sometimes the rumour mill gets ahead of government and before there are decisions made, before all of the steps are followed, that information can be shared. Information gets leaked and so that was the situation. It came as a surprise to a number of people and so it wasn't by design that things were out there in the public before the MLAs were informed.

Really, the team looked at everywhere in Yellowknife. There were some requirements that, you know, were needed. So the space needed to be large enough for future expansion. There...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A similar meeting isn't necessary because it's not a similar situation in Fort Smith. That being said, I was on the phone with the mayor of Fort Smith and a number of councillors on Friday discussing this very issue. I wanted to give them assurances that this was not a situation that, you know, some people are now assuming that it is, that there is going to be a single campus in Yellowknife or Yellowknife is absorbing all of the campuses or anything like that. I wanted to let them know that this was part of the ongoing process of developing a facilities master plan that...