Thank you. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, the MARS system has to be coordinated with what's happening on the front of the Mineral Resources Act Regulations. That work, of course, is happening over in ITI. The two are really dependant on one another. It is one of those occasions where the technical specifications required for MARS to be successful has to happen in conjunction with what's happening with the MRA regulations so that the one will reflect the other reasonably and that the timing of the two are complementary to one another. So it made, in that sense, the most sense to have the two under the one department and in the department that is leading the work. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I did ask some questions earlier in this sitting about as I -- well, okay. I'll just back up. We set up this ISS -- I'm not even going to get the name right, information shared services something or other, within Department of Finance to bring together all the computer IT folks so that there -- in all of those functions and staff were taken out of departments. There was 70 people moved as I remember into Department of Finance to do this work. And I just find this quite remarkable now that we're actually starting to dismantle that and take off this piece back to the Department of ITI. But that's just my observation.

But as I understood, this is where this government sees going towards map staking, and I'd asked the Minister before about when the public debate, the public engagement was going to happen around map staking. She'd indicated that it had already started and I said, well, I pay pretty close attention to this stuff and I've seen nothing about this. So I'm hoping that the Minister got a bit of an update from her department as to when the policy debate and discussion around map staking is going to start and, yeah, I'll leave to the Minister. Thanks.

Thank you, Member. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, Madam Chair, I do have a lot of information about the Mineral Resources Act and MARS. Of course I didn't bring necessarily my ITI materials. I can say, Madam Chair, there's a lot that's expected to take place in early 2022 on a high level. I was hoping to give a little more detail here, although, as I say, I wasn't necessarily anticipating to be answering the ITI level at that -- at that detail. But right now where we're at is that the Indigenous -- the IGCS, the Indigenous Governance Council, is working at an officials level with officials from ITI on the Mineral Resources Act. That process is in accordance with the protocol that was developed earlier this year with IGC, IGCS, and so if there's been some delay from the Member's perspective, it's not blame, but it's just as a way of explanation that that process took a little longer to get solidified and clarified.

With that underway, the public engagement element of the Mineral Resources Act will be coming forward in 2022. I don't what month. I would say early in 2022, probably not January, but hopefully by February. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair, I appreciate that. I'm trying to avoid going into a lot of discussion about map staking, but I think I have to go there a bit.

Look, there's going to be winners and there's going to be losers when we go to map staking. The losers are going to be the small prospectors, people that make claim stakes, expediters, air charter operations, the claim stakers themselves. Those are going to be the kinds of people that are going to lose by going to map staking. And the ones that are going to win are the environment, quite frankly, because we still require that claimed posts, the trees have to be mowed down in between them. There will probably be a lighter amount of disturbance on the environment. But it gives an advantage to the large companies who can just go out and decide we're going to stake up a huge area of not even going on the ground. All they have to do is pay some fees.

So that's the kinds of questions you're going to have to deal with. As I say, I think there's going to be winners, there's going to be losers. And then, you know, how do we set the fee structure in a way that doesn't allow big companies just to go out there and tie up everything and never do any work, like under significant discovery licence where they don't have to do any work forever.

So there's a lot of issues in there about who's going to win, who's going to lose. And setting the fees at the right level so that you avoid people tying up land unnecessarily and all of the money that went into the claim staking, should that actually go to government as a way to prevent companies from tying up too much land, or is there a way to try to get that money to flow through into actual exploration work? And how do you adjust the fees in a way to make that happen?

So there's a big amount of policy discussion and debate that has to take place around this. It's not something like you'd just flip a switch and one day you go from claim staking to everybody doing it on a computer through map staking. So any ways, that's my claim, map staking 101.

Is the Minister aware of all of these issues, and is that the sort of thing that's going to be encompassed in the discussion to help set up this Mineral Administration Registry System? Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. And I just want to remind Members that we are doing capital expenditures, not program operations and policies. So if you want to keep focused on the capital expenditures, thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I think the Member has well-articulated really the underlying reasons why this particular project moved from being something under ISSS over to the folks who are doing the Mineral Resources Act regulations. It is a complex area. It is an area where there are a number of things to be balanced and sensitivities to ensure that we are achieving the goals of the Mineral Resources Act to provide certainty and stability and clarity and to be a modern act that balances the kinds of -- potentially contentious issues that the Member has quite rightfully pointed out.

I'm mindful of time and don't want to necessarily utilize this as the opportunity to say it, but it's certainly remains my hope, Madam Chair, that the Mineral Resources Act regulations and the MARS system that goes with it are going to indeed be a modern system and an efficient system and one that will be looked at positively both -- well, by all the different parties who may be looking to the work that we're doing.

So happy to run another briefing on the Mineral Resources Act regulations and/or MARS and/or all of the things, Madam Chair, and perhaps get into more detail at that time. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. Yeah, I know that we're supposed to be talking about the budget here but this is moving something that was in Department of Finance to ITI, and I just want to make sure that the policy debate and discussion that needs to take place around the use of this system is going to get due consideration from the department. So I'll leave it at that. Thanks, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member. Member for Thebacha.

I just want to make a short observation on page 8 with number 4.

For the record, I think that the transfer of the records from the Mineral Administration and Registry System to Industry, Tourism and Investment is a good decision. I say that because going through the maze at shared services is sometimes overwhelming, and I think that the NWT should be open for business. We have to be open for business. If we're going to have economic recovery after this pandemic, we have to have an open business policy for business, because anything that trickles down from any of these affects everybody in the Northwest Territories, and I appreciate that it's going to Industry, Tourism and Investment which is less cumbersome. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member for Thebacha. And I'll take that as a comment. Any further questions or comments?

Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 2021-2022, Department of Finance, capital investment expenditures, information system shared services, not previously authorized, negative $6,200,000. Does committee agree?

Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 2021-2022, Department of Finance, capital investment expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, negative $6,200,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you. Committee, we will now consider the Department of Health and Social Services on page 9. Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 2021-2022, Department of Health and Social Services, capital investment expenditures, health and social programs, not previously authorized, $21,361,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you. Supplementary Estimates (Infrastructure Expenditures), No. 2, 2021-2022, Department of Health and Social Services, capital investment expenditures, total department, not previously authorized, negative $21,361,000. Does committee agree?

Committee, we will now consider Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment on page 10. Supplementary Estimates, No. 2, Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, capital investment expenditures, mineral and petroleum resources, not previously authorized, $1,200,000. Does committee agree?