Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for the Minister of Lands, who seems to have primary responsibility for the former Cameron Hills production area held by Strategic Oil and Gas.

Can the Minister tell us whether there's been any successful bids for the assets at Cameron Hills and if not, what is the next step in managing this site? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Lands.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the receiver is working through the results of this sale process. There is one bid for a portion of the site. The department is reviewing the bid and will provide comments back to the receiver. However, it is in the hands of the court and the receivership process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that, though those bids closed in September. So several months. Although there was a conditional approval given for the fourth version of the closure and reclamation plan for the Cameron Hills site, the receiver's not yet submitted a final version with numerous changes required by the land and water board. It's been over two years now, and this plan is needed to do a cost estimate and calculate financial security.

Can the Minister explain why a final closure plan has not yet been submitted and give us a date as to when it's going to come? Thanks, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the receiver has not submitted a reclamation plan because they're awaiting for the outcome of the sale process. A process for the plan will begin once the sale process is completed and, unfortunately, the receiver hasn't provided a timeline for the conclusion of the sale process. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. Seeing as we seem to have some leverage with the receiver, maybe we can suggest that they speed that up a bit.

In my statement, I noted that the financial security held for this site was totally inadequate and has probably run out by now. Can the Minister confirm that the financial security has run out and tell us how much additional money our government has paid to the receiver for the compliance and limited reclamation at the site? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The security for the land use permit and water licence is at $2.9 million. In addition, OROGO holds an additional $1 million as proof of financial responsibility. The financial securities that have been converted to cash are being held in trust accounts. To date, the receiver's costs have been approximately $3.0 million which has been funded fully by the Department of Lands. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. The full cost for implementation of the close and reclamation plan that's not yet finished does not appear on the public record anywhere but our government must have prepared some sort of estimate by this point.

Can the Minister provide that cost estimate and its calculation to this House? Or if he has to give it to me on a confidential basis, I'd be willing to take that. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there has been some very high level work completed around estimates for the cost of reclamation. However, due to the lack of information about the conditions of the wells and the site infrastructure, it is not possible to accurately establish the cost at this time. One of the next steps, once the sale proceeds is complete, will be to better understand the conditions of the ground, its strategic, and complete work so the government can actually estimate the cost to fix this issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Member for Yellowknife North. Minister responsible for Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm going to ask -- answer the second of the two questions first. I have recently spoken to the department and reiterated the importance of getting this piece of legislation moving along. It's a large act. It hasn't been updated in a long time and it's now in a state with lots of different pieces in it. But that is still my goal to see that it does -- is ready for introduction during this Assembly. And I'll continue to update Members accordingly.

Mr. Speaker, right now, there's not any consideration to expanding the current retail model that sells liquor. That is not something I'll be doing at this point and obviously if, or hopefully when, the Liquor Act comes before the House, certainly then we'll be open to hearing what all Members have to say and see how they may want to treat that piece of legislation at that time. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My hope in getting that change made is that in Yellowknife presently there's two liquor stores. The licence to that is in 2025, and I was hoping that in place by -- for 2025 when we go out to some sort of competitive process, I had some issues with the last one that -- well, it would be a competitive process that would allow, you know, some different options of who would run the liquor store possibly, and I was also wondering if in 2025, when we put that out under possibly a new Liquor Act, whether the possibility of an additional store in Yellowknife would be considered. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, a lot of hypotheticals at this point given that we're still under the current act and given that the tender hasn't even been begun; that process hasn't even begun yet. But right now, the way it's set up under the act is, of course, that it has to go through a system whereby the official retailer would have to be designated. And even before getting to that point, Mr. Speaker, when considering what the procurement process would look like, and there's an analysis that's done by the NTLCC, the liquor commission, that looks at whether or not more stores are needed, whether the current quantity and type of store is, in fact, working. And as I say, again, at this stage we're still a little bit early given that we're three years out. But those are the kinds of considerations that go into determining who or what type of procurement takes place. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, I think there's a lot of work that could be done in opening up the Liquor Act, and I think one of the big areas that I would like to see is delegating some more powers to communities and I think they could set things such as store hours, whether they want a store, whether they want to set limits on how much alcohol can be sold, how alcohol can be served at festivals and events, how licences can be obtained. There's actually -- I'd basically like to give the whole act to communities, Mr. Speaker. But I'm wondering if in the planned changes that we are hoping to get done in this Assembly whether delegating some authority on liquor to communities is at all being considered. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, communities have a lot more power than just prohibition or not. They actually can hold plebiscites here across the Northwest Territories to determine what type of system they want, what kinds of rules they want, the nature or degree of prohibition they may want. And there are powers within the act for some of the liquor licence sales that they may want to see on different properties within the community. So there actually is quite a bit in there already community to community. I certainly -- again, though, this is, indeed, the kind of question and the kind of area that is under consideration for the Liquor Act and ways in which to continue to make it flexible and responsive because the MLA's quite right that this is an area where is quite a great divide between the different communities in trying to find that balance to allow everyone to make the choices that they think are appropriate for their community's going to be a difficult one. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary, Member for Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I think another area where there's quite a great divide is open beverage. And I think it's no surprise that many people, they drink their beer at a softball game in Yellowknife but when the police come we all run and we throw our beer cans away so as not to get arrested, yet then when you go downtown it's no surprise to see a bunch of people drinking in public already. And I mentioned in my statement that, you know, we mandate beer gardens presently. You can't ever have alcohol being drank around minors such as at festivals and events. I'm wondering when we go out for this engagement on the public Liquor Act whether open beverage is one of those conversations we can have? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the question of public consumption was one of the questions that was part of a recent consultation in preparation for the Liquor Act review and that "what we heard" report is coming, I believe, later this session. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Deh Cho.

Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. On the issue of the mandatory vaccinations policy, or COVID-19 vaccinations policy, the mandatory vaccinations list, I note that from the amended vaccination policy guidelines, that the definition of COVID-19 is the coronavirus. That was at the beginning of the whole outbreak in 2020. This has not been updated to include the omicron variant and the science behind the omicron variant. There's nothing. I've never seen it since the omicron came out. There's no science to say what will work to cure it except to stay home. And it didn't distinguish, and I say it again, between vaccinated or unvaccinated people. It didn't. Vaccinated people were the ones that got -- you know, they were sicker than anybody else. And it's been known and it's shown around. I'm not sure where the science is behind all that, behind that there. You know, they're putting in new -- revising the implementation or putting new public health orders. They're not new. They're still the same. You know, it was in there already, work with vulnerable -- you know, people have to have proof of vaccination. That's what it's saying. We haven't changed anything. We're just reiterating what was already there. We're still marginalizing our people. People still need vaccine passports to get into facilities and everything.

But I'm wondering on the employee side, since I'm addressing this to the human resources Minister -- I didn't want to give her any science stuff because I'll be directed somewhere else -- whether there would be some considerations, because we're in a bubble ourselves too in our small communities, we have settlement maintainers who work with everybody. And our communities, I've said before, we intermingle, and nobody is getting sick. I'm wondering if the requirement for, you know, regulated federal RCMP facilities can be worked on by people that are vaccinated in headquarters that come into our communities so this requirement is taken away from the settlement maintainers but also the overall issue about proof of vaccinations? Mahsi.

Thank you, Member for Deh Cho. Minister responsible for Finance.