Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I want to thank the Minister for acknowledging that. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister once again, assure me and the constituents of Thebacha that the primary campus for the future polytechnic university will be in Fort Smith? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I stated, each campus serves a purpose. In Fort Smith, that's where the administration of the college takes place, and there's no intention to change that. The other campuses each have their roles as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you, Member for Kam Lake. Minister responsible for Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the question.

I want to start with that access to healthcare while it's determined by whether someone is Indigenous, Metis, on a private healthcare plan, or a public healthcare plan, access is the same. That is guaranteed under the Canada Health Act. How you get to that medical treatment I think is what the Member wants to hear about.

So the medical travel program is in place not to reimburse residents for everything that they spend but rather to reduce the financial barrier of travelling for a service that's not provided here. So the benefit program is provided by GNWT on par with NIHB and the Metis Health Benefit Plan. The situation is that if a person has an income of under $80,000 a year, they're eligible to stay at a boarding home which provides both accommodation and food. If they have a higher income or they choose not to stay at the boarding room, then the per diem is $68 per day, and that's been the case since 2003. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the costs have gone up substantially, especially over the last couple of years here, and I'm wondering if Health and Social Services intends to increase the per diems and hotel subsidy that they offer to make it more in line with the costs that residents are actually incurring when they travel south? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and I appreciate the question. The medical travel program has a number of reviews ongoing in this fiscal year, and that includes the per diem rate, which we've been referencing here, and mileage rates, as well as the exceptions policy, the escort criteria, a number of formal definitions such as "nearest centre" and the air ambulance transportation policy. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in my Member's statement I spoke about the GNWT benefit program for medical travel really being the gold standard in the Northwest Territories and one that I think all residents would like the opportunity to have access to. So I'm wondering if the Minister can speak to what the cost would be to provide medical travel benefits to all residents equal to that received of GNWT employees? Thank you.

Yes, thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the NWT medical travel program is for people who don't have private means to travel through their employer benefits, for example, whether those are public employers like the GNWT, or they are private employers, the medical travel program fills that gap.

In terms of who gets these benefits in the GNWT, the medical travel benefits are part of the compensation package for staff, and so they have them on that basis through their collective agreement.

In the last fiscal year, the medical travel program spent $43 million for approximately 15,000 cases. So with 45,000 people in the territory, let's triple that and say it's $150 million to provide even the level of benefits we have now to everyone. So there is no cost estimate. I can just say that it is going to be tens of millions of dollars over what we spend today. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Kam Lake.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, would the Minister be willing to look at a policy change as well that would allow travel to Calgary for medical travel patients? Right now what patients are saying, or what constituents are saying, is that there's additional wait times in order for waiting for appointments available in Edmonton and that medical travel won't cover the travel to get to Calgary for appointments of the same nature but that are available much sooner. And so I'm wondering if this change can be made at a policy level. This would save on administrative burdens associated with appeals and would also provide timelier healthcare service to NWT residents. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you for that question. The way that the referrals work now is that we have an agreement with Alberta Health Services to provide, as a first response, care and services in Edmonton and the associated support services, such as the Larga Boarding Home and medical travel contracts and so on, all support that Edmonton location. I don't have any information about the relative waiting lists of Edmonton versus Calgary, which would be an important dimension to consider here. And also another thing to consider would be whether Alberta Health Services would provide the same care in Calgary as they do in Edmonton. So those are some interesting things to take up.

What I need to say about that as well is that if someone is referred to specialized care in Calgary, the medical travel will pay for them to have that specialized care in Calgary versus Edmonton. If people are accessing care themselves without being referred by the NWT healthcare system, then the cost of medical travel is on them as is the cost if they are using a private clinic. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, before I ask my question, I just want to state that I do not -- I have a lot of empathy for the people that had to execute the orders of the Department of ENR, and it is not them that I am criticizing in this.

So my questions are for the Minister of ENR. When did the department reach out to Chief Marlowe to request a face-to-face meeting to discuss the incident? And when the Minister does have that meeting, could we please have a copy of it and minutes from the meeting. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Great Slave. Minister responsible for Environment and Natural Resources.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there's a few questions in there so I'm just going to answer the first one. As soon as the search warrant issue was addressed, we then sent out the letter because it was in the courts, we sent the letter to Chief Marlowe, and he has received it and we confirmed it with his staff today. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that letter is dated as of yesterday, after getting questions in this House, and it's my understanding it went to the wrong address for the Chief and not the SAO. My question, though, is, however, yesterday the Minister said with respect to the raid that it, quote, "hasn't been proven it was unlawful." However, the search warrant was thrown out by the courts. So is it not logical then that that search was unlawful? Is this really just not a game of semantics. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we followed this process. It's not semantics. We follow the process. We got a search warrant, and we did the -- they executed a search warrant, not a raid. It was an execution of a search warrant. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, why didn't the Minister consider reaching out ahead of time in order to mitigate the situation with the LKDFN? This is what we've been talking about since we took office, was doing things properly and respectfully with the First Nations. Given that the warrant was thrown out, I think that there could have been a lot of things done here to not have had this happen, to traumatize women and children and foreign dignitaries. Therefore, can the Minister answer whether or not he thought about mitigating this and contacting the Chief ahead of time? Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there was an investigation. I don't get involved in the investigation. We have reached out to Chief Marlowe. We've set up a time, and we are working with that. We are trying to resolve this and move forward. But I need to stress that the investigation is still ongoing, so I don't know all the matters into that. And I don't want to have any political interference on this. Same as what we did with illegal hunts in the mobile zone, officers do their work and then it's brought to my attention after they do their work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So what I hear is the Minister doesn't know what's going on in his department and he's not interested in mitigating this with the First Nations in a respectful manner. Will the Minister apologize to the LKDFN for this inappropriate raid on their people and their wellness camp, elders and children? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yesterday the Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh, the Member in that riding, asked the same thing. As I said yesterday, and I'll said it here today, I've reached out to Chief Marlowe to have a meeting in their community to have this conversation in how we move forward. That's what I've promised, and that's what I will continue to do. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.