Shane Thompson

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, demonstrating her strength of will, independence, and sass right to the end of her welllived 48 years, Sherri Lynn Thomson passed away Monday, December 6th.

Born in Yorkton September 15th, 1973, the third child of Graham and Linda's four children, Sherri spent her earliest years in southern Saskatchewan with her family before settling in 1977 on the PFRM farm.

Sherri developed a passion for hockey, participated in minor hockey programs, and from grade 10 to 12, played for the Fort Saskatchewan First Team culminating with a trip to the Canada Winter Games in...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I've already met with the TG government, and we're more than willing just recently, with Cabinet, and I'm more than willing to meet with them. Our staff are meeting with the TG governments as we move forward.

In regards to surpluses and that from the Government of the Northwest Territories, we don't have surpluses. We don't. We're $1.5 billion in debt. We have a budget that we're using. So there is no surplus out there. If there was, we have 33 communities with 33 issues that each community has that we need to move forward on. So I can't promise the Member...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we're already focusing on the future and the present. We are working with the municipal government on this very issue. So the Member, I've given her emails showing what was going on. Yesterday I provided an update that was very current as of yesterday morning, that they met with the community and were working on trying to address that issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I thank the Member for her comment, and we'll make sure we get that messaging out there about the mobile zone.

So ENR becomes involved or notified of a potential infraction under the Wildlife Act. A renewable officer will initiate the investigation. If they believe that the animal was harvested illegally, they may then seize the caribou and start a legal process. While the investigation's underway, seized caribou are stored securely in a frozen state for evidence. As you are aware in the last budget, we are actually building another storage or building a place where we can store the seized...

Thank you, and I thank the Member for her questions. As we all are aware, the Bathurst caribou herd is facing serious conservation concerns and is currently at record low numbers. The government has worked closely with our wildlife comanagement partners to put a range of management actions in place to support the recovery of this herd. It is important to note that the Wildlife Act and the regulations differentiate between commercial hunts and outfitting hunting.

In 2006, ENR began to reduce the number of tags issued to outfitting numbers given the conservation concerns for the Bathurst herd.

Al...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the GNWT is not supportive of the plan to release treated tailing water from the oil sands to Athabasca River until we have all the information, data, and science to assess whether this can be done safely.

In this House, I've stated this publicly and make this clear to Alberta and the federal government. We will keep our Indigenous governments and Indigenous organizations, committee, and other water partners, informed of our work on this matter which we know is a great importance. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, to be clear, there's no releases of oil sand process. Water is currently allowed under the Alberta Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act or the Federal Fisheries Act. The Alberta government has said its regulations will not be in place until at least 2023, and the federal government regulations will not be in place until at least 2025.

At ENR, we have employed sciences and experts as part of the GNWT water management and monitoring team who are reviewing the proposals to authorize each release, including those with regulatory expertise. We are also...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my understanding of the 2014 report that the Member's talking about was jointly done with NWTAC. We're more than willing to work with them to go on there.

As for the inadequacies that the Member talks about, it's a budget process. We need to compete with other priorities for the Government of the Northwest Territories. The Member from Yellowknife North talked about $20 million for housing. Bam, let's give me $20 million for housing. Well, how do we take that compared to other issues? Housing is a priority. We've heard it in this House. But we have other...

Thank you. So the Member should be aware that my EAC is sending out emails that I get, and I send it to the Member right away. Whether we get them from the community, who are asking questions and that, when I send this stuff out there, the latest one was an issue about freeze up. We get that sent to the Member right away so she is aware of what's going on.

As for the formula, yes, it encompasses everything. Again, when we talk about the municipal funding formula, it was developed with NWTAC for the betterment of the territories, the 33 communities. So it's a formula that's used, and it counts...

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and it's going to be a long answer on this one because I want to make sure we get the information out there.

In recent years, we have seen a decline in many caribou herds across the NWT and northern Canada. As you noted, the Bathurst herd declined from an estimated 47,000 in 1986 to 6,240 in 2021. At the time, we also saw a major decline in the BluenoseEast herd, declining from 120,000 in 2010 to 19,300 in 2018. The Beverly herd declined located to the east of the Bathurst herd was established at 103 in 2018. That's 103,000. And has been undergoing a slow decline in...