I would gladly defer the question to another Minister, Mr. Speaker.
---Laughter
Minister, thank you, and thank you for that question. Mr. Speaker, I know the Member mentioned the idea of context, and challenge of having minutes to work off of, and I acknowledge the Member is working off of minutes that have been redacted, is that, in fact, you don't necessarily have the full context. I have gone back to the department and specifically ask about this.
I would agree that I certainly was concerned to read that there might be inappropriate assistance happening. I was reassured, and I'm happy to be reassured, that again in the context -- the context of the meetings, that I was not at, is that in fact, they are -- they were meetings in the context of developing pandemic relief and pandemic assistance. This of course being back right early after the lockdown in June of 2020, so when the situation of identifying ways of relief and recovery was really very fresh and very new. And so what in fact was occurring and what may not be reflected in fulsome notes in terms of meeting minutes is that when the industry is writing to the Mackenzie Valley Land and Water Board or other co-management boards, the purpose and goal, from the perspective of the department, is to ensure that they know what exactly the position is that's being taken, that they understand the issues that are being faced, that they can engage with other departments in fact if we need to be formulating a position to respond, and may well be able to give some advice, which may or may not ever be taken by the Chamber of Mines but to be able to say, you know, look, you're going down a path that simply is unlikely to bear fruit or you're going down a path, you know, where we may be able to -- we would have to go back and make our own response to, so. That, as I understand, is the context of what occurred but, again, I appreciate, I have followed up with the department about this. And there's a line between supporting industry, any industry supporting any outside body and certainly doing that in the context of still maintaining our independence and the role that we have as government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.