This is page numbers 5517 - 5566 of the Hansard for the 19th Assembly, 2nd Session. The original version can be accessed on the Legislative Assembly's website or by contacting the Legislative Assembly Library. The word of the day was know.

Topics

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

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

Caitlin Cleveland

Caitlin Cleveland Kam Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would have liked to have heard a yes, not a -- I want a yes, just a passionate yes. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

My last question for the Minister is can the Minister clearly confirm whether our 18-kiloton reduction goal is attainable with only 20 percent renewables in diesel communities? Thank you.

Diane Archie

Diane Archie Inuvik Boot Lake

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, achieving the 18-kilowatt -- kiloton, sorry, big difference here -- kiloton reduction in the electricity sector is still possible. This will be achieved by a combination of things like the Inuvik Wind Project, the LNG projects, Fort Providence Transmission Line, as well as assuming some of the 20 percent intermittent generation limit. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

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

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. My questions are for a different Minister, the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. There are only two written submissions to the five-month long public and targeted engagement on mining royalties and 11 other online submissions.

Can the Minister tell us more about these online submissions and provide a list of who made them? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Frame Lake. Minister responsible for Industry, Tourism and Investment.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm glad the Member got my name right. It was the Minister of mines earlier and that of course doesn't exist. There is the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Investment, sometimes known as Minister for the economy for which I'm responsible for the mineral resources sector and all of the work to get the Mineral Resources Act implemented, the mineral resources regulations ready to go. And in the process of doing that, one part of that is the royalties and for that purpose, Mr. Speaker, there was a five-month long process, as the Member's made the point of helping me out in explaining. I am grateful for that. That was an extensively long engagement process. That's the formal engagement.

There's actually been, since 2017, when this process began, lots of engagement around mineral resources, mineral resource industry, Mineral Resources Act, the mineral resources regulations, and all of the different parts that go into it.

With respect to this one particular part, unless we, as the GNWT, tell someone that's bringing their opinions to us that we're going to turn around and publish them, it would be fully inappropriate for me to now stand up and read out names of the submissions. The "what we heard" report is a standard process that all departments go through. Once there's been a formal engagement putting the information out of what we heard, the point is to summarize it so that individual people who are making submissions don't have to be putting their names forward.

So I'm certainly glad to commend that report to the House and hope folks out in the public will read it and be reviewing it and can consider whether or not it reflects their views. We're still open to receiving information. I'm always open to receiving information and -- because the decisions haven't been made yet. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for her statement there. There was also 21 different surveys open only to those holding prospecting licenses. No data from these surveys is compiled or presented in the "what we heard" report. If these surveys had been open to others, there could have been some useful data generated on, you know, possible divergence of views.

Can the Minister explain why these 21 surveys were only open to prospecting license holders and indicate whether any actual data will be publicly presented? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, these were specifically intended to gather information from prospector licensing holders because, of course, they're asking questions along the lines of "do you agree with adopting the PDAC exploration assessment digital data form EADDF for work assessment reports for data submission and digital format including PDF reports or other acceptable files, metadata, spatial map locations, geophysics submissions, including raw field data." Mr. Speaker, the average member of the public does not want to be answering that question. It would not be appropriate. It was targeted to the folks who understand this, who work in this, and who can provide us that valuable feedback. And as with all other things, Mr. Speaker, we are gathering it and it does go into "what we heard" reports in due course. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Colleagues, I think our interpreters are running at full speed here. So please, please take your time. Member for Frame Lake.

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for the response. Yeah, I actually tabled that information earlier this week in the stuff that I obtained access to information. But, you know, people shouldn't have to buy a prospecting license to be able to participate in targeted engagement.

Ironically the first item in the "what we heard" report from those secret meetings -- sorry, from the targeted engagement/secret meetings with the mining industry is called transparency and confidentiality. It appears that all ITI is going to do in terms of transparency is to separate resource revenues from mining and petroleum. Quebec and many companies already report this information mine by mine.

Can the Minister tell us exactly what is going to be in the royalty regulations regarding public disclosure of mining royalties? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, to the translators, I am sorry; I will try to slow down.

Mr. Speaker, I take issue with the continued characterization of an engagement process as "secret." This has been since 2017 that we have been going out and talking about the Mineral Resource Act and its regulations, before I even came in here. And part of the concern was raised in 2019, when are you going to start to do something and stop keep going and doing consultation processes? We hear that all the time. And, yet, ITI is out doing both public meetings, engagements, forums, sessions, surveys, and targeted engagements with the sector, which of course means Chamber of Mines, operating mines, advanced exploration projects, prospectors and developers, people who are interested in the industry, secondary members of the industry. It is not inappropriate for them to be doing that. It would be wholly inappropriate for them to not be doing that. And what we are at the point of right now, Mr. Speaker, with this is being able to go do the modelling to develop, to take back to the Intergovernmental Council about what should be determined and what types of policy options should go forward for drafting under the royalties. That's the stage we're at now. It is clear that one of those things is going to involve publishing more data from the mines about what types of royalties they have. That's obviously not the system we have now. I can't go out and change that right now. But we've received that information, and we'll be going forward with that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

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

Kevin O'Reilly

Kevin O'Reilly Frame Lake

Merci, Monsieur le President. I want to thank the Minister for that. I promise I'm not going to call them secret meetings anymore but as long as the department can find a way to share that information with everyone, which they don't do. So they continue to be secret meetings.

But there remains a lot of work and public engagement required for the Mineral Resources Act to be brought into force. The engagement report also mentions other research and analysis on royalties. So can the Minister tell us what other research is being done, whether it's going to be released publicly, not just shared with others, and whether all this work is going to be completed before the end of the 19th Assembly? Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Caroline Wawzonek

Caroline Wawzonek Yellowknife South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said, at this point, Mr. Speaker, having received feedback and being aware of interest in the area over the last six years, the department is at the point of being able to do the modeling and to be able to then take that, develop a policy, and develop it in concert, of course, with the Intergovernmental Council and the technical working group with whom we've been developing the Mineral Resources Act regulations from the start. It's part of a co-development process. They will make some decisions as a group. That will be what determines what the drafting instructions might look like. And I would just note, Mr. Speaker, one other thing: This is the first Assembly that actually has open to it, a process by which draft regulations do go out for publication. That is a new thing. Typically it's only with bills that would get published. But now there actually is a process where a draft regulation itself would actually be open for input before being final. That's at the one end. There are certainly steps to come in between.

And once we have guidance from the technical working group, we'll be able to provide that and to come back and to speak to where we're at with those directions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.

Rocky Simpson

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, after last evening's discussion on sports and youth, I think the Minister of MACA knows the importance of supporting youth in their endeavours to go on to greater things in sports.

So, Mr. Speaker, with respect to sporting events within the NWT, will the Minister of MACA confirm if there's any requirement for a proof of COVID vaccination prior to participation? Thank you.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Municipal and Community Affairs.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was getting jealous of Minister Archie in answering all the questions here, so I appreciate the Member from Hay River South asking the question.

So some good news for the Member, and hopefully it'll be the last time he has to talk about COVID in this House here. We don't require any COVID vaccination requirements for sporting events in the Northwest Territories. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Rocky Simpson

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister confirm if there was any requirement for proof of vaccination either at the Arctic Winter Games or the Canada Winter Games, and if not, what was the reasoning for it? Both these events were outside the territories. Thank you.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I can confirm that both the Arctic Winter Games and the Canada Winter Games did have the policy in there. But on November 18th, 2022 the international committee, in conjunction with the host community, decided to withdraw or revoke the policy for mandatory COVID-19 vaccination reports, as well with Canada games on November 23rd, the host society and the Canada games council revoked it there. So in my conversations with both ministers, both societies in Charlottetown, PEI and Fort McMurray, both ministers and the host society said that that was the public safety requirements that are no longer required. So that's why it was removed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Rocky Simpson

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, yeah, the issue I guess is that some of the organizations are, you know, dropping the requirement at the last minute and what that does is take away an opportunity for potential athletes or participants because they don't get selected because they can't meet those requirements.

So, Mr. Speaker, will the Minister tell me what he is doing to ensure that all NWT athletes, coaches, and volunteers can take part in sporting events across Canada regardless of vaccination status? Is the department intervening on behalf of those who are not able to provide proof of vaccination? Thank you.

Shane Thompson

Shane Thompson Nahendeh

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I agree with the Member's frustration. When I heard about the vaccine requirements being dropped, I did reach out to both ministers and had that conversation and the international committee and saying hey, we had a process. We, in the Northwest Territories, to select our teams had to follow the process that said you had to have vaccination requirements done and report it in. That didn't happen. They changed it and so we weren't able to do that. So unfortunately, we as a government don't intervene, but Sport North and the TSOs have that ability so we encourage the athletes to reach out to Sport North and to the TSOs to intervene on their behalf. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

The Speaker

The Speaker Frederick Blake Jr.

Thank you, Minister. Final supplementary. Member for Hay River South.

Rocky Simpson

Rocky Simpson Hay River South

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the next event coming up is the North American Indigenous Games. The same problem. They're requiring proof of vaccination. So, Mr. Speaker, will the Minister commit to sending a letter to the North American Indigenous Games council questioning why the need for proof of vaccination and request that it be withdrawn to allow for participation by any athlete, coach, or volunteer from the NWT? Thank you.