Thank you. Member.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yes. I look forward for that work. I think it's a long time overdue. Can I get an update? During the last main estimates, there was quite a lot of talk of the eight members in the Beaufort-Delta under this section. I believe now we've added one more, apparently, in this budget, and I believe those were petroleum resource officers. I know there's not a lot of petroleum resource. I believe there was some talk about re-profiling them or making sure the job descriptions align better to making sure they have work to do given the decline of oil and gas in the Delta? Can I get an update, firstly, why did we add one position to that office? Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I can certainly go through the details of what is specifically ongoing right now. I'm not seeing that we've added one, but let me just double check that back over with Deputy Minister Strand, please.

Thank you. Deputy Minister Strand.

Thank you. Member.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Perhaps, I could just get a clarification then. I'm looking at page 217, and I see we added one position in the Beaufort-Delta and three to headquarters. I believe the three to headquarters are for the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Act implementation, but can I just get confirmation of what the four positions being added to the mineral and petroleum resources unit are for? Page 217. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. We do have, yes, indeed, some coming in for Mineral Resources Act, and one is, I believe, a permafrost scientist coming in that I would believe is being counted here, yes.

Thank you. Member.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Stepping back, the $16 million I see here for mineral and petroleum resources versus the economic diversification and business support, which is $18 million, I think some things are a little out of line in this unit. I struggle to know exactly, especially the petroleum resources side, what they're doing. I heard the deputy minister say there that we're trying to get that unit in Inuvik to work on some of the Husky forfeiture and the remediation work, and I think that's great. I think that's probably the direction of where a lot of our staff have to go. Are there any plans to kind of review this unit and have it capture some of the remediation work that I think has probably a much higher likelihood of economic return for at least the foreseeable future than the petroleum resources side that all the job descriptions currently list them as. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. This is a busy unit. It has a lot going on and across different areas of the department. This is where the socio-economic agreements reside. This will be where the remediation work, the remediation economy resides. This is where the Northwest Territories geological survey resides with all of its scientists. There's actually only a small percentage that is minerals specific. It is quite wide-ranging and quite broad. We have our client services community relations section that's here which supports, in fact, small businesses and small prospectors to take action and to be active in the Northwest Territories.

Again, in the interests of time, I think that's probably a bigger question, but one that, at this point -- again, I'm happy to kind of go through each one at more length, but simply to say that this is really not meant to be. I would not want anyone to walk away thinking that this is all petroleum focused or that the petroleum-related work is one that is dominating the budget here. It's not. To the extent that there is, there is work also happening there in LNG, up and through the Delta and supporting work that's happening there in that region, as well as in the south section. Again, Madam Chair, I'm trying to figure out how I can be succinct on what is actually a very large question about an area that does provide supports to some pretty anchor areas of the economy. Again, I'm happy to, perhaps, do a bit of a write-up on what the details of this department does if that would be of assistance. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I don't need to get into a very large debate about, perhaps, ITI reviewing some of its mandate and restructuring some of its departments. I'll leave that to another time. Can I just get a clarification: in the 2019-2020 actuals for the NWT geological survey, there's actually a $1.3 million decline. Can I just get an explanation for that? Thank you.

Thank you. Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. May I suggest going to the director of finance, please.

Thank you. Ms. Salvador.

Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Madam Chair. One last comment: I actually like seeing these line items of Mineral and Petroleum Resources Act implementation and when a department goes out and creates a unit and staffs it and makes it very clear. I would encourage all other Ministers, when you have large pieces of legislation or regulations to implement, make a unit, give a manager with that title. It creates clear accountability, and it creates clear funding. It also kind of shows where a government's priorities are at. I'm not sure this aligns with my priorities, but I think this means people aren't doing things off the side of their desk. I note a number of departments are very behind in all of their regulations and probably because they haven't created a clear unit and funded it like this. I'll leave that as a comment. Good job on whoever decided to actually make this very clear who is supposed to do that work, which is a large and important piece of work. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you, Member, and I'll take that as a comment. Member for Frame Lake.

Thanks, Madam Chair. I want to continue on the line of my colleague about staff that we have that are dedicated to oil and gas. Look, I know some of these people. They are hardworking. The reality is: there hasn't been any exploration, seismic drilling, since devolution, seven years ago. I'm not quite sure what everybody does, but yesterday, we heard about OROGO having a third-party assessment done of their resource needs. Is that something that the Minister is prepared to look at in terms of the oil and gas function within ITI, having a third-party assessment to look at resourcing? Thanks, Madam Chair.