Masi. Minister of Environment and Natural Resources.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I have not heard of any interest from any other communities; however, that could change. The Member mentioned in his Member statement that there was some federal funding that was announced, and I believe the 2017-2018 budget there was $25 million committed over five years to support a pilot national Indigenous guardianship program. That is for all of Canada. So we are in the process of putting some funding requests in to the Nature Fund to see if we can access some of that funding, and I am sure, as the Indigenous governments and the communities become more aware of the program and the existence of the program and possible funding pots, then there should be more interest in this. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

I agree with the Minister, that $25 million set aside for proposals, I do not know what the end result of that was, but at this point the larger amount of money that has been put forward by the federal government of $1.3 billion, I have had all kinds of ideas for it. I would like to ask the Minister if the Department of ENR is prepared and willing to support additional Indigenous guardianship programs should they become of interest in other regions across the territory?

Yes, absolutely, we would be prepared to support additional Indigenous guardianship programs in more regions. I should add that, the Sahtu, we have already offered assistance to the Sahtu region in their application for this sort of funding, as well. We believe that empowering the Indigenous guardianship program is empowering residents of the Northwest Territories. I think we are all of the opinion in this Chamber that who knows the North better than the folks who live in the North, so I think the guardianship program would be an excellent program for a lot of people in the Northwest Territories to provide their input and be, exactly as it says, a guardian the North.

I would like to ask the Minister if the department would consider supporting the launching of a territorial-wide Indigenous guardianship program. There are many reasons, positive reasons, to have guardianship programs in all regions across the territories, and maybe even a couple of guardianship programs in a particular region. So, again, would the Minister support the launching of a territorial-wide Indigenous guardianship program?

The guardianship programs, they are best championed, developed, and implemented by the Indigenous governments. The GNWT, we would be more than happy to play a supporting role, but programs such as these would work a lot better if they are planned and implemented by the Indigenous governments with support from the territorial government.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I heard what he just said, but will the Minister commit to engaging the federal government, I guess, in support of some of the proposals that may come forward? What I am asking is that we need some sort of coordination at some level, and I feel that the GNWT is in the best position to coordinate these type of programs. They have renewable resource officers, that I mentioned in there, who could work hand in hand with the guardians, who could assist in training the guardians. They could work with the rangers. They could work with the various groups in the community, all designed to make sure that they are protecting the land and waterways across the territory. So would the Minister engage with the federal government to assist the various guardianship programs that could potentially happen across the territory?

We would be more than happy to work in partnership with the Indigenous governments of the Northwest Territories as they put proposals together to try to access some of the federal funding. The Member is correct. The GNWT may be best-positioned sometimes to have those talks with the federal government, along with I think they have a couple of residents of the Northwest Territories who are part of a national organization or a national group. Again, the Member is absolutely correct. Working in partnership with the Indigenous governments, I think it's important that we, as a territorial government, in our meetings with our counterparts in Ottawa continue to advocate for additional funding for a lot of these guardianship programs. So that was a long answer just to say, yes, we will continue to support the Indigenous governments. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.