Kieron Testart

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to speak on a topic today which is important to all Northerners: reconciliation within Indigenous peoples.

For over a century, Indigenous children were removed from their communities and sent to residential schools. These governmentfunded, churchrun schools attempted to whitewash and reeducate the spiritual, cultural, and intellectual development of generations of Indigenous youth. This was a terrible mistake that has stained our shared history, and we, as a society, must accept the trauma we intentionally inflicted upon Indigenous peoples from coast...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to thank the Minister for providing us with information. I know it's a live event, and I see there is still a lot of work that needs to be done, but if he could just reassure taxpayers that, if there are costs not covered by the insurance, the government will carry the burden of that so that we are not putting the cost back onto our citizens. Thank you.

Thank you to the Minister for that reassurance. The estimate of these repairs, regardless of what that is going to be, the final of these repairs, the insurance claim is going to cover that? Is that the department's best estimation at this point?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd like to recognize my parents, Terry Testart and Maureen Marshall, and my aunt Lillian Testart. Everything I've learned about good public service I owe to my parents, whose excellence and dedication in their careers made them the most important role models in my life. Thank you for being here today, and thank you for always being there for me. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I move that the chair rise and report progress.

That covers the mechanical aspects of repairing this issue, but there will be more costs required for the backup diesel system. Can the Minister speak to what the equivalent cost to generate the loss of 15 per cent of power through diesel is? Is he aware of those numbers now? Can he share them with the House?

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and thank you, colleagues. The Snare Forks Hydroelectric Facility has been reported as having a bearing failure, and now the public reports on this say the unit will be offline for several months, which represents a loss of 4.3 megawatts of power, approximately 15 per cent of the hydro system's total generating capacity. My question to the Minister responsible for the Power Corporation is: what will be the impact of this technical failure on the cost of living of Northerners and the power rates that rate payers are paying? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Thank you to the Minister for his responses. Nothing further. Thank you.

The Minister knows as well as I do that it ought to be 60 days, period. The number of caseloads isn't going to be reduced in the foreseeable future. The backlog is only adding more. Clearly, this new position isn't enough. Can the Minister commit to increasing the employees to the rental officer, or at least developing a proposal for the business plans to bring more resources into that office, more human resources into that office?

Is the Minister in a position to answer any detailed information about the procurement of cannabis supply, including potential cannabis products that will be made available through retailers in the Northwest Territories and the names of suppliers that the government has spoken to? Is the Minister able to answer any of those details? Thank you, Mr. Chair.