Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This is for the Infrastructure.

Mr. Speaker, elders in my constituency have told me of an existing route that is more suitable, that the route chosen for the winter road. Will the Minister commit to reviewing all land alternate route and incorporate traditional knowledge for the Gameti winter road that could to lead to an all-season road. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, right now the GNWT's efforts is focused on the approved mandate which advances the Mackenzie Valley Highway, the Slave Geological Province Corridor. And I'm always willing to listen, but we don't have this on the budget to be able to build that road. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Well, will the Minister at least do this: Will the Minister commit to working with the community of Gameti and Tlicho government to develop a working group to begin the process of all-weather road? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Infrastructure is working with the Tlicho government to advance some of these projects. Last week there was a meeting that we had, and it's, you know, looking at the Whati transmission line, the access road, some of the roads along in the Tlicho region. So yes, we are working with the community and the government. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Does the Government of the Northwest Territories have a plan for dealing with rising prices in the NWT? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a really good question. I assume we do. I mean, we look at, when we're putting in proposals, to have some room for inflationary price costs. So it depends on which project actually. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Thebacha.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, does the Minister of Finance believe that Fort Smith deserves a solution in addressing homelessness? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Thebacha. Minister responsible for Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I've had the opportunity also to speak with my colleague, the Minister responsible for Housing and for Homelessness.

Mr. Speaker, this is a mandate item of the Government of the Northwest Territories. I would venture to say that every person in this House considers it a priority and considers it a priority for every resident anywhere in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us if she and her department treat people living on reserves, including members of the Salt River First Nation, differently than other people or communities within the NWT? If so, can she explain why that is. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I've had the opportunity to say on many occasions, the GNWT's approach, whether it be in policy development, funding decisions, it's meant to be inclusive. We look at the whole of the Northwest Territories, the needs of all communities. Funding is not distributed -- or not not distributed on the basis of one group and where they may or may not be, and that is equally the same for the members of the Salt River First Nation. They have the same access and must have the same access, of course, to services as every other member of the Northwest Territories, and the government does its best to allocate the funds that we have based on that need and based at looking at the whole of the territory to maximize the benefits to all residents of all those services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, in an April 29th email, the finance minister said that officials with Housing NWT met with Salt River First Nation in April to discuss housing priorities, including the Tiny Home Pilot Project.

Can the Minister provide more detail with what her department will be doing next to financially support Salt River in getting this project underway? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, so if anyone's wondering perhaps why as Minister of Finance I'm speaking to this is the Member and I have had the opportunity to begin these discussions back at the time of the last budgeting cycle and in discussing where and how funding decisions are made. I've since had an opportunity, and continue to have the opportunity, to meet with the Minister responsible for Housing NWT. It's her staff directly who had met with the members from the Salt River First Nation, the chief, the vice-president I understand, or CEO. I understand that happened April 12th or thereabouts. And they will certainly be continuing to lead the development of this project.

At this point, the information I have received is that the Tiny Homes Project is potentially very innovative. It is potentially one that could have a lot of interesting solutions. I had an opportunity to speak with staff from my colleague's department, and they spoke well of it. The simple fact at this point, though, is that right now the community has the existing community housing support initiative program funding. They're going to pursue the funding that they have for a project that is well developed, costed, and then once that's run its course, that they will continue to develop an actual proposal and a more meaningful detailed proposal on the tiny homes. And I've been assured that staff from NWT Housing Corporation do now have individuals ready to support and to assist the development of that project going forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to assist Salt River First Nation with their application to the National Housing Co-Investment Fund, including a letter of support assisting them with the project? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And so, Mr. Speaker, ultimately it would be, again, Housing NWT that would be leading the development of a formal support letter. Certainly, we would work together as a government when it comes to time to developing budgets and to looking at the availability of initiatives funding. So that work will certainly continue through business planning process. But I've been assured by my colleague that, of course, the Housing NWT is quite eager to continue to work with Salt River First Nation as they develop a proposal, and then that proposal can go through the process of being considered for the National Co-Investment Fund Program.

So, again, I'm very confident that the staff from -- again, from Housing, but certainly from Finance if needed, will be there to work with the Salt River First Nation and to discuss with them what is needed to put a proposal together. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Madam Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So way back when devolution occurred in the last Assembly, actually Assembly before that, the Department of Lands was created and the organizational structure of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources was changed. Some functions, in particular related to water, came to ENR, and others went to ENR, to Lands.

There was a commitment at the time to devolve and then evolve if needed after time was passed.

Since then, it became clear that there's a -- well, I'm missing a step.

First of all, there was a -- in my speech from -- to be Premier, Mr. Speaker, I said that I'd be looking at the Lands department and seeing if I could combine it with another department. I found in the last government that smaller departments often sometimes don't get the attention they needed because of the size of the departments and it's also a lot of departments for ministers. So there was a benefit to reorganization.

But when we did that work, we actually found that the department that I thought might be closer related was the wrong one. So it was clear that there was a closer intersection of some of the work with Lands and ENR.

I know that Members here have brought that up that inspections in contaminated sites, for example, that's how there's overlaps, securities in project assessments or others. So several concerns were also brought forward by the public and Indigenous governments and organizations regarding the confusion of what roles and responsibilities between the departments. The government renewal initiative to date identified close significant intersections between ENR and Lands.

So when we started this government, and the Members were provided a copy I believe, I had asked Minister Thompson to review the Lands and MACA organizational structure in this mandate letter. And I do believe Members were given a copy of the mandate letters. If not, let me know. If they're public I can give them to you.

And the Minister, in his work, decided that he wanted to include ENR as well to meet the commitment that was made at devolution.

As well, another MLA raised an oral question in this House in December of 2021 asking if we'd started the work. And I responded that it was underway and could be actioned in the life of the government.

So we did a jurisdictional scan of functions at Lands, MACA, and ENR across Canada, and after review, we decided that we actually had a private contractor do this work, and they -- the contractor developed four potential options that were reviewed by the deputy ministers, committee of Cabinet, and Cabinet.

The design process, when we bring it together, would be a collaborative process involving senior managers from both departments to ensure that we get it right. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Premier for that. That's way more information than was certainly in the news release. But I did ask her if she could share the background information. So I look forward to getting the consultant's report and I'd ask that the Premier also to make that public. So I look forward to getting that information. It's not clear what or who is driving this merger and how many staff may lose their jobs.

Can the Premier tell us who Cabinet consulted in making this the decision; was it the business community, Indigenous governments, or who? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to start by saying that this merger of departments was definitely not about reducing costs or losing jobs. That is not my goal at all. It was just, like I said, one commitment was with devolution devolve and evolve.

The bigger thing for me was just my experiences in the last session and seeing the difficulties with smaller departments competing against bigger departments. So at this time, we're not looking at -- we're not expecting that this will be a cost saving endeavour. This is about making sure that the program's more effective and more efficient and better for the users in the end.

Who do we use? When devolution occurred, I'll bring it back there, the Department of Lands was created, and organizational structure of the Department of ENR changed. Some functions in particular related to water came to ENR and others went to ENR to lands. And those were some of the confusions we were having.

Since now, I mean now it's become clear that this close intersection of the work being done, and so we're looking at changing it -- sorry, I was reading the wrong answers.

So the decision was made on concerns that have been brought forward by clients and the experience of those working in and within the departments themselves. And again, my own interests and the promise with devolution to devolve and evolve.

Merging the departments is consistent in how the functions are organized in the majority of other Canadian jurisdictions. There's many examples to turn to existing within the GNWT and across the country on how to organize to support gathering information for and maintaining effective stewardship and regulatory functions where climate change fix within the new department will be a focus of this work as we go forward.

Again, Mr. Speaker, this is not a cost saving endeavour. This is about efficiency. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Premier for that. Maybe I'm out of order here, but I'm trying to get a commitment out of the Minister to -- sorry, my questions are out of order. I'm just trying to get a commitment out of the Minister to actually share the background report, tell us who was consulted in this decision. And I didn't get answers to those but I'll try something else now.

So I've raised many times the inherent conflict of interest with one department acting as a promotor of resource development and then regulating rights administration and royalties at the same time. We've got NGO community government support that I think would be better situated in the Executive.

You know, so can the Premier tell us what further government reorganization is being contemplated and whether this side of the House, and perhaps even the public, might be engaged? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.