Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you for attending today. I am going to take this opportunity to actually speak to a number of initiatives that the Government of the Northwest Territories is doing, because some Members in this House say they don't think we're doing enough. I want these young people to hear exactly what we're doing as the Government of the Northwest Territories, because I believe the actions that we are taking go beyond. A small jurisdiction like we are, we are punching above our weight, so I'm going to read every word on these questions.

He wants to know what we're doing in the southern part for climate change around airports and highways. The Northwest Territories infrastructure network is vulnerable to the effects of climate change due to a reliance on ice roads and infrastructure built on permafrost. Changes in climate, including temperature, precipitation, or water levels, result in increased variability and could affect the reliability of our system. We rely on the stability of permafrost to maintain our highway and runway surfaces, and need sufficient water levels to operate the ferry and barge resupply.

To address and mitigate the future risk and changes, the department developed a comprehensive Climate Change Adaptation Plan which covers all aspects of transportation system. The department has been actively implementing the Climate Change Adaptation Plan for over five years now. We have invested in research and development, including installing and monitoring test sections all across the system. We are working with world-class research institutes such as University of Calgary, Carlton University, McGill, Laurier, and the National Research Council of Canada to undertake research development on the modelling of the future and developing mitigation and adaptation measures for our assets.

We have completed climate change vulnerability assessments across the system. We have been improving poor surface and drainage conditions on our highways and runways. We are working to realign winter roads to overland alignments, and we have been building permanent bridges at former ice crossings to stabilize the highway system.

We have also worked with other government departments on the overall Northwest Territories Climate Change Strategic Framework. We are leading the national-level Task Force for Northern Infrastructure, along with our counterpart territories and provinces, to ensure our infrastructure design, construction, and maintenance practices are climate change-resilient.

We have developed best practices in buildings for northern infrastructure, building in permafrost regions, building in winter ice roads, and we have recently been audited by the Auditor General in our plans and did receive positive feedback from the review of our work.