Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we are part of the interdepartmental committee overseeing the implementation of cannabis legislation here in the Northwest Territories. One thing that we are doing, though, is looking at having a conference and bringing in people from each of the communities to attend the conference and looking at addressing any community governance concerns, hamlets, communities, bands. I will be looking at striving to support the community governments and their understanding of this legislation or any concerns that they might have.

Now, we are looking at having this conference sooner than later because the legislation just came through. We were looking at having it in November. However, with the tourism and a lot of conferences going on, it was hard to get that conference up and running, so we are looking at January to have that conference. So all hamlets, all community governments can get ready to look at coming in.

Some of the things that we are going to be looking at are business licences, looking at plan review, fire safety is going to be a big one now that it has become legalized; community planning, zoning bylaws are some other things that we need to look at. So all of those are going to be encapsulated in the conference that we are going to hold.

I appreciate the Member's question, and it is something that we are looking at. As I mentioned, we are part of this interdepartmental committee and we are going to try to address it and make sure that we have a good transparency approach to working with our community governments.

We have some time here, as we are not doing the O and M right now, but in my Member's statement I talked about the need for more resources for enforcement in our small communities. Can the Minister commit to reviewing the funding his department provides to small communities for enforcement purposes and to increase it where needed to tackle cannabis legislation?

As this legislation just came through, I know there was concern about funding for all communities across the Northwest Territories. As the Member knows, we just recently did have an election and we are going to be reaching out to the new mayors, the new councils, the new NWTAC, if there's going to be an NWTAC board, and have these kinds of discussions with them. We knew this legislation was going to be coming in. We had discussions and concerns brought up at our last meeting, when Cabinet did meet with the NWTAC. We will continue work with the local government administration, as well, and make sure that, as this legislation unfolds, we will be there to adapt and revise any types of work that we need to.

Right now, funding enforcements, we don't know what they are going to be. We are going to have to work with the Department of Justice as well as other departments to make sure that we can adjust to how this legislation proceeds. So it's early days and we will be working with this interdepartmental committee to make the necessary changes. Like I said, working with the partners, the NWTAC and LGANT.

MACA's School of Community Government does very important work in our small communities. Can the Minister commit to developing training materials for delivery through the school on cannabis-related municipal planning and enforcement from the community's perspective?

Yes, that is a very good idea. With my other hat, the Housing Corporation, we are looking at developing some signage and communication to get out to all our public housing units. I know the Department of Health and Social Services is working on some really good education and awareness information. So we will work with our committee to see what we can develop, and we do have some really good training opportunities, where we can go online and do some kind of, like, eLearning workshops with our regional centres, so that is a very interesting concept. We will make sure that our interdepartmental committee takes that into consideration when we are getting this information out to our regions and out to the communities.

Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Masi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The information does deal with health effects, as well, especially geared towards the student population.

Thank you for that response from the Minister. The Minister also said that the information would be circulated well in advance of the October 17^th legalization date. Can she please confirm that that was the case?

Yes, we have given all the information to the district authorities. I am assuming they have done it at the beginning of September, or at least in October; they are getting that out to all of the principals within all of the schools, so by now all schools should have the information available.

At the level of parents, what information can they expect to find in the future on the ECE website about cannabis education in the school? I note that there does not seem to be anything there at this point.

We are trying to do as much as we can. We are working with Health and Social Services. There was a brochure sent out to every resident in the Northwest Territories, I believe, with information on it. We have done quite a few things. On October 3^rd, we had a Facebook Live on our ECE website that was talking with Dr. Matthew Hill, who was talking about the effects of marijuana. Again, we used him on October 4^th at NACC, our Northern Arts and Cultural Centre. He was in person. There was an online webinar especially geared towards grades 7 to 12. October 9^th, we did an online webinar in French. October 10^th, we did more presentations provided to all the principals, et cetera. However, I do take the Member's note, and, if we do not have enough information, I will review that and we need to bump it up. If we do not have enough on there, then we need to make sure it's accessible, so thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for bringing it forward.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I thank the Minister for her responsiveness. My final question is: if parents have questions about the cannabis information or about cannabis as it relates to students and their children, is there a number they can call or an email address they can use to ask those questions, whether of this Minister or of any other Minister?

Parents, of course, like I say, we are trying to keep them as informed as possible. We recognize there is a lot of fear out there, and there should be a lot of fear out there. They can contact their principals at any time for any of these instances, but we also have it on the Executive and Indigenous Affairs website. I am going to try to read this off. It's https://www.eia.gov.nt.ca/en/cannabis, and on that site you can get information, common questions, contact forms for specific questions. Again, we are trying to keep parents as informed as possible. We are giving literature for students, for teachers, for parents, and we will monitor it. As needs come forward, if we find out we need more, we will try to do our best to accommodate that need.

Masi. Oral questions. Member for Frame Lake.

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Lands and have nothing to do with cannabis. I visited the old Esso tank farm adjacent to the Con Mine here in Yellowknife recently and found the site in a bad state. I even sent the Minister some rather nasty photos. Although the tanks are finally gone, some of the fencing is about to fall down, and the old mine tailings remain uncovered. Can the Minister tell us who is responsible for fixing the fence that is beginning to fall over at this site? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Minister of Lands.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The parcel of land that is known as the Esso tank farm is titled to in fee simple by Imperial Oil, so the condition of the site is the responsibility of Imperial Oil, including when they choose to remediate the site. The fencing also, as I understand it, belongs to Esso.

I would like to thank the Minister for that. This is not the first time I have raised the issue in the House, so can the Minister commit to picking up the phone and calling Imperial Oil about fixing the site out there?

I don't think I am going to be phoning Imperial Oil, but I do understand that the Department of Environment and Natural Resources has been communicating with Imperial Oil about the property during the demolition phase, so there has been contact between Imperial Oil and the GNWT.

I thank the Minister for that. I know I was a bit facetious, but the fence is about to fall over, and we don't want people getting in there and running around. When I was out at the site, there were also all-terrain vehicle tracks outside the fence, on bare mine tailings. It's not clear whether this is part of the road right-of-way or what. Can the Minister tell us: who is responsible for the remediation of the areas outside the fence, next to the road itself, as this material is being spread all over the place?