Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I know the Premier, who I am going to direct my questions to, is going to say we're marshaling all resources and doing everything we can, but when we see Gahcho Kue do their announcement, we've seen that people accelerate the mining industry is shrinking and certainly the economy is on its rails, Mr. Speaker. I am asking the Premier what can he do to help fast track the relationships and the approval process we have with Indigenous governments and not give the old saying, we're doing what we can, we're doing this stuff now, because we need to see true results that are not clear and transparent to Northerners; we're truly doing everything we can. Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Mr. Premier.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So I believe the question is what are we doing to fast track these projects by working with Indigenous governments. And so to that I will say that we have put a lot of time and energy into improving the relationships with Indigenous governments. And as I travel around the territory, that's what I hear from many Indigenous governments, that we have improved those relationships, we've done that work, we've built that trust. And by doing so, we're able to combine forces and work together on different projects. Of course, we have the Arctic Economic and Security Corridor. We signed an MOU with the Yellowknives Dene and the Tlicho. We have good relationships with all of the Indigenous groups up and down the Mackenzie Valley when we're talking about the Mackenzie Valley Highway. We are -- we've increased the funding to help Indigenous governments participate in the regulatory process and to engage with exploration companies.
And so there's been a lot of work. There's been a lot of trust built. And it's paying dividends. I would also have to mention, of course, that the NWT Council of Leaders travels together down to Ottawa, Indigenous leaders and the GNWT Cabinet, with a common message. So the work that we've done with Indigenous governments has been very important. It's one of the highlights of my time here in this term. It's one of the things I will look back on with a sense of pride. And so I can tell the Member that we are working hard on that aspect of ensuring that we have everything in place that we need to advance the economy and bring new projects online. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, it's difficult to feed your kids with trust, and it's hard to heat your home on hope, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, real tangible items would be to accelerate the MRAs. Mr. Speaker, real tangible ideas would be to accelerate maybe a junior investment program. Mr. Speaker, those are the types of acceleration processes I am asking for. Is there ways to accelerate that type of action to get better results or I should say any results. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I won't speak about things in front of committee, but the budget contains things to do just that. We're also working on -- we have an MOU with CanNor to help speed up things. We're working -- I am working with my counterpart in the federal government to look at a more detailed MOU to really tackle a lot of these issues that have held things up. We are looking at how we can engage the federal government more so that they can provide direction to the boards in certain areas and provide better support to the boards where we see things held up. One example I always mention is that if the boards want some legal advice, they need to apply to CIRNAC and there needs -- there's an approval process that takes a while, and it could be a couple months later before they're able to get an answer to the legal question they had two months prior. All of these little things add up, and they add delays. And we're addressing those. We're also looking at ensuring that if there are processes that can be done concurrently, so the permitting process that the GNWT does, if it can be done -- the sections that can be done concurrently with the board process, we want to make sure that happens. We're working with Pine Point Mining right now to do that, and that's going to trim six months off their timeline for opening, which equates to tens of millions of dollars of benefit to the Northwest Territories.
So over the last two years, we have put our mind to this, and we've put in a lot of work, and we are now in a place where I feel confident saying that we have a lot of the tools in place and we are getting ready to implement a lot of the next set of tools. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Mr. Speaker, one of the biggest problems is timelines, response to timelines, and money and resources for Indigenous organizations to be able to respond to any of these timelines and response to timelines and hence to avoid the perception of not interested or causing delays.
Mr. Speaker, I've given the Premier several ideas. Here's some. I'd like to hear the Premier's thought about trying to effectively grab on these as actionable items.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And as I mentioned, a couple of the ideas that the Member gave are reflected in the budget. The idea that the Member just gave, I mentioned that in my first answer when we increased the funding to the interim resource management assistance program, and we're also encouraging the federal government to increase their contribution to that as well. So there are tangible actions that will result in increased efficiencies and projects coming online sooner. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
