Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, I committed to getting back to the House on that communication that we would have, particularly with the contractors of the winter road, and I have not got that to date. I will follow up and get back to the Member.

Thank you. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. The Premier has made statements in the past resisting any form of carbon pricing but later signed on to the pan-Canadian framework on clean growth and climate change. Can the Premier tell the public and the Regular MLAs the Cabinet's current position on carbon pricing for the Northwest Territories? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. The Honourable Premier.

Mr. Speaker, we have had briefings with committee. There is another briefing scheduled with committee on Wednesday, and we have been very clear in our briefings. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I appreciate the briefing that we are going to get, but it is not public, as I understand it. I guess we will wait and see. As I said in my statement, the federal government recently released a technical paper on its backstop carbon pricing scheme that will apply to all provinces and territories. What is our government doing on the issue of carbon pricing, and when will that be shared with Regular MLAs and the public?

As I have said many times in this House, we will be doing what the people of the Northwest Territories tell us to do. We have been holding roundtables throughout the Northwest Territories. We have been inviting people from the smaller communities to attend these roundtables, and we will be tabling in this House a report on what we heard, so that all of the people in Northwest Territories will know what we heard. Also, we will be releasing an NWT carbon tax discussion paper in June, so that we will have another round of consultation with the people of the Northwest Territories. We feel that it is very important for us to have a very clear understanding of what the people of the Northwest Territories want us to do in this regard.

Thanks to the Premier for that. I appreciate that we are finally going to get a discussion paper going on carbon tax here in the Northwest Territories. Can the Premier just give us any sort of insights into what will be in that paper? Will it discuss different forms of carbon taxing and what we actually do with the revenues? There are a couple of different ways of looking at the revenues. One is to rebate part of it back. The second is to invest some of it into renewables. Can the Minister explain whether that discussion paper will consider the issue of what to do with the revenues raised through a carbon tax?

My expectation is we will take into consideration all of those aspects with regards to a carbon pricing mechanism. We certainly have been given assurance from the Government of Canada, directly from the Prime Minister, that we are going to work together on a solution. It will be very important for us to fully understand the implications of carbon pricing before we make an actual decision on how it will be implemented. All of the areas that the Member raised, it is my expectation that the discussion paper will raise.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker, and I want to thank the Premier for that commitment that those items are going to be dealt with. On March 1st, the Premier promised to provide a carbon modelling and pricing reports of the Standing Committee on Economic Development and the Environment. Can the Premier explain why this report has not been shared and when he intends to provide it to the committee and to the public? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I do know that we have been doing modelling on the various implications of carbon pricing. The Member quoted two cents per litre, 18 cents per litre over five years. I can tell you that it is higher than that, but we have been doing that work. I will check in to see where that report is at, and if it is ready, we will release it.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier, I addressed the issue that the last Assembly, the 17th Assembly, had seen the Auditor General's report on corrections in the NWT tabled March of 2015 followed by a committee report dated June 4, 2015. My question to the Minister is: what is the status of this report and the recommendations? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Minister of Justice.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 2015, the Auditor General of Canada completed an audit on the NWT Corrections Service that focused on the North Slave Correctional Centre here in Yellowknife and the Fort Smith Correctional Complex male unit, of course in Fort Smith. The Department of Justice responded by accepting all of the recommendations in the report, and I understand to this point 95 per cent of the recommendations have been completed. Thank you.

Those are high numbers. I understand that the Auditor General's report produced 14 recommendations, and the action plan items introduced by the committee for the department was 105. So those are high numbers to address the small amount of recommendations by the auditor. However, there was some oversight neglecting to be addressed in the report in the area of port services, sentencing decisions, community in custody programming. Those are just a few that are not addressed in the Auditor General's report. What is the status on those items that weren't addressed in the Auditor General's report?

I'm not entirely sure what programs of Corrections the Member opposite is referring to. We are always trying to improve in all areas. As I mentioned, 95 per cent of the recommendations have been completed. That means there's still 5 per cent to be completed. The items that he has referenced today, however, are not those as I understand it which were included in the Auditor General's report. Obviously, issues of sentencing and rehabilitation are always ongoing concerns of the department and Corrections.

Can the Minister provide a commitment or a briefing to look at the issues that were not completed with the Auditor General's report and provide a briefing on those neglected items?

Just because some of the items have not been completed doesn't mean that they were neglected. It may be that it has simply taken more time. Included amongst them, I can advise, are our changes to the Corrections Act.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Sahtu.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister commit to providing this side of the House with a briefing on the Auditor General's report of 2015? Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, I'd certainly be pleased to meet with the Member opposite on an individual basis. I don't know whether a full briefing is really required at this stage. The Auditor General's report is now more than two years old; 95 per cent of the recommendations have been completed. I would be certainly pleased to meet personally with the Member opposite to discuss those items that are still outstanding. I can advise that even those outstanding have not been neglected in any way. They simply have not been fully completed.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.