Daniel McNeely

Thank you, Mr. Chair. It seems, you know, from past experiences there, we -- where there's a lost opportunity, another one's created. So we have an emerging willingness for rehabilitation. So there's going to be staff opportunities for the emerging counselling for drugs, as we discussed here the last number of days, more specifically yesterday, on the increased activity of the drug trade. So to minimize that demand through counsellors and those types of positions would the 30 position PY, in this case, you got 17 -- 15 and 17 PYs here. Is there some -- I don't know, maybe some of the staff...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. My question is in this corrections chapter is the closure of the Fort Smith Corrections Centre. It seems to me that -- I've read that we're going to take -- we're going to close the centre and we're going to have approximately 30 people -- or 30 staff members, plus part-time staff, basically laid off. Could the Minister provide a little bit more information on other options; is this really the only option? It seems like such a hard blow to our community and the clients within the corrections centre. I just don't have enough detail whether that's the best option or not...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My third question, does the Minister have a timeline for when the regulations for the Public Lands Act will be completed? Mahsi.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on my questions -- or my statement on the Public Lands Act, my first question to the Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Can the Minister of ECC provide the House with an update on the status of the development of the regulations for the Public Lands Act? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. When I look at the programs and the funding and the grants coming in there, it sort of encourages me to say here's solutions. As I mentioned several times here, I'm quite -- I would say quite proud about the actions taken by leadership to address the drug issue that we're experiencing right across the territory. But in our area, the leaders are grasping the problems and taking a hold of it and doing some planning and having some consultations. And this coming after the weekend, they're going to listen from the youth. So the youth is going to raise their list of...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah, it was more of a suggestion on how to improve our management system. The management system is really the governing organization of this department, and if we have collectively identified various weaknesses how do we fix that. So it was just a suggestion. We do have a co-management structure in place called our territorial wellness and regional wellness councils. So I've been telling some leaders back at the Sahtu, we have this joint venture, or whatever you want to call it -- in this case co-management system -- to deliver and improve our services because our people...

No further questions. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Another area of exploration and interest is back in my workdays here when Imperial Oil had their own community. They had their own store, and it was the only one in town. They had their own post office and their own dump site. And their own dump site now is in the area of the airport. So it's outside the proven area agreement but it's still their responsibility, in my opinion, and I think, you know, there might be some value in exploring the clean-up exercise before Norman Wells disappears and moves into -- or the oil field moves into reclamation. So who's going to be...

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And thank you to the Minister for that reply. I'm glad to see that there's some transitional ease or counselling or identification to keep the staff busy in other areas or other departments. And also part of transitioning, if the Minister could add to the transition list, maybe there's other companies out there, such as the security at the mines, that these tradespeople at the correction centre might want to move to if the availability was there. So I thank the Minister for that assistance. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thanks to the Minister for that explanation and understanding these cuts. I know it's a hard decision to dismiss people, having done that myself. But on the flip side here, it seems that the inmate capacity is sitting at 44 percent, which is good news. So it tells me that the incarceration rate or the occupancy is down. So therefore, is there plans to reduce the staff of that administration to house -- or the administration, the government employees, to reduce because of the reduction of the inmate capacity at 44 percent? Do we need all the employees still working? Thank...