Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I had an opportunity in February, during our break, to drive the Mackenzie Valley Highway from Fort Simpson to Norman Wells. And, you know, it was great to see a lot of work happening on the Norman Wells side with the Prohibition Creek Access -- Prohibition Creek Road. So I mean, there were a lot of people, businesses. There were workers from the Sahtu, small communities. It was really great to see some that work being done. It is being advanced. We're also having discussions with some of the Indigenous group that are along the alignment, such as the Pehdzeh Ki First Nation as well as, you know, Tulita. So we are furthering that discussion. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Minister responsible for Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And so as the House is aware, we have committed to working with the Tlicho government on procuring a new school for Behchoko. The federal government does not billion schools generally and so in our discussions with the Tlicho government, it's been determined that they would be the best to approach the federal government. And we are fully supporting them once they do that. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, where does this government get their money from? From the federal government. So therefore he can ask the federal government, probably not this one or whoever, but to commit that if we can -- if they can billion or help us billion a school. So I'm just asking the federal -- the Minister of education, wherever they're getting their money from, to ask those government to help us billion a school in Behchoko. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There has been a plan in place for quite some time now to approach the federal government, ask them for money to billion a new school in Behchoko. As the Member is aware, it was the federal government who built this school outside of the community many years ago because it was cheaper. But obviously that is not in the spirit of reconciliation. So we have committed to working with the Tlicho government on approaching the federal government hoping that they will be supportive and that they will rectify, really, the mistake that they made 50 some years ago. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that is good. I know that when the school was first built in 1969, you know, and it opened in 1972, that was not the will of the people, of my people. It was the will of the government of the day, which is that two government: The territorial government and the federal government, they thought it was -- because of the infrastructure and, you know, whatever of the -- the government decided to do at the day and they're trying to move people away, they thought that, you know, that they can do better, that our life was going to improve better than in Behchoko at that time. So that was their will, not our will. So I'm just making a statement because I don't have any questions, and he already said it and so they admit that there is a problem, and it was not our will to billion the school in Edzo as well. So thank you.

Thank you, Member for Monfwi. Taken as a comment. Oral questions. Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yeah, I'm glad the Minister's here; we're all going to take advantage of that.

Mr. Speaker, like, I mentioned this year I've been trying to get a winter road to my communities but, again, it just still goes to show that, you know, we got winter roads to Colville Lake, Deline, Gameti, Nahanni Butte, Norman Wells, Somba K'e, Tulita, Wekweeti, Whati, Wrigley. And then we got ice roads. We got Aklavik ice road, Dettah ice road. Ice crossings. Liard crossing, Mackenzie River crossing, Peel River crossing. And then we got a road to Tibbitt Lake. And this year I asked for help to get a winter road built to my community of Lutselk'e. We have the high cost of living there. To bring in a vehicle is crazy, to bring in material, homes into the community, just really, really at a very high cost. So and, again, I was told that it's going to cost about $2 million to put a road in on an annual basis. So I'd like to take this opportunity to direct my question to the GNWT Infrastructure Minister, Diane Archie, to see if we could work with the Government of Canada to help find $2 million a year just for the winter road on an annual basis, plus additional barging that we could do to provide services to the community of Lutselk'e so that we could help reduce the cost of living in our communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member and I have had discussions in the past on the Lutselk'e ice road request. We did look into it. The Member's correct, it was going to cost about $2 million annually to have a look. And with that, there was a number of things. You know there's a short window. There's a number of risks going across that lake. And, you know, we will continue to discuss. I know the Member's wanting to have further discussions with perhaps the federal ministers on how we can work together, perhaps find some funding, to be able to look at, you know, other ways to get -- get the road done. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And my invitation to all the Ministers and Premier still stands to coming to the community of Lutselk'e and Fort Resolution and Dettah and N'dilo. I think we had some kind of commitments in April and May so we look forward to that. But when you come to the community of Lutselk'e, again, the issue of winter road is still going to be there. The high cost of living, like I said, to bring a bed frame into the community costs $600. Things we take for granted living in a community like Yellowknife or in places where they have winter road, ice road, all-season roads, there's good. But, again, people in Lutselk'e are very concerned about the high cost of living. So I'm hoping that when we go to the community, we're going to be talking about that. But at the same time, I encourage you to continue to lobby on behalf of my community and the people in my community to the Government of Canada to see if they could get them on board to help start planning, do the feasibility study, and then start looking at putting an all-season -- I mean, a winter road, ice road, and also look at barging. We only get one barge a year, but we need probably a couple more. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Member is correct. We do have the communities currently serviced by marine transportation services for the annual supply of fuel, construction, marine, and dry goods. Trucking fuel on the ice road over the Great Slave creates significant environmental risk, which would increase cost of fuel. So there are technical challenges, Mr. Speaker, of building an ice road across the lake. As I mentioned earlier, I understand where the Member's coming from and wanting to look at, you know, future development -- future road into the community. You know, we do have capital processes that we do as a government. So I hear where the Member's coming from. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I want to thank the Minister. And I look forward to working with you and also with the federal counterparts to, again, find money for our community. And the sooner the better. And I think when we come to the community of Lutselk'e, we're going to have that discussion. And there's other opportunities. Like, you said as well is that there's housing; there's materials in the community, the Co-Op, and everybody could all have a hand, including the parks. So I think if you all got together and had that discussion, I'm sure we could reduce that cost as well. But, again, we just got to do that homework and I look forward to sitting down with you. And that was just a comment. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member for Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Taken as a comment. Oral questions. Member for Hay River South.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we know that what happened last year in Hay River. There was flooding, major flooding. And we're looking at a cost of probably $175 plus million. And another issue that we seen happen last year was supplies not getting into northern communities and part of it, I think, was because of, you know, the harbour -- access to the harbour in Hay River, and the problems with the coast guard grounding and other boats as well. So even though I didn't get these questions in advance to the Minister of Infrastructure, she's answered them prior anyways, so. I would like to ask the Minister of Infrastructure if she can confirm if there was any funding for harbour remediation for Hay River in the federal budget. Thank you.

Thank you, Member for Hay River South. Minister responsible for Infrastructure.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when I was in Hay River in the fall, we had a community meeting. We talked about harbour restoration, otherwise known as dredging, but I'm not going to say that today. I'm going to call harbour restoration just for sake of having our Minister here. We did send -- we did some work, Mr. Speaker. We had money. We had bathymetric studies done. We spent over $150,000 to get some of this work done, mostly because it helps us set a business case to put towards the ocean protection plan. So I'm going to just stop right there in case the Member has more questions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. No, I appreciate what the Minister and her department have done. They've done a lot more than we've seen in the past and I think we're on the right track. And I guess I'd have to ask what is the status of this business case submitted to the federal government, and where are we with it? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, everybody was tuned in on Tuesday to the federal budget. And I was very happy to see a number of things mentioned, more specifically the Taltson, which I was excited to see, but we did put in a funding proposal under the Ocean Protection Plan. You know, I met with Minister Alghabra when I was in Ottawa for FPT. We had one-on-one discussions on, you know, the need to have the Hay River harbour restoration completed so that we can get our tugs all the way up the valley into Nunakput. You know, we had struggles this year. We were late. We had, you know, a number of issues trying to get our supplies of fuel, equipment, into the communities. That's important for us. We put this proposal together. Going back to the budget, I was really excited to see that Mackenzie River was on one of the -- one of the listed projects for the budget. So I'm hoping that's what that is. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I'm hoping the dollars for the Mackenzie River included Hay River. And I'm just expecting that, you know, since the people doing the budget are from southern Canada, they may not know kind of where the Mackenzie River is and where the Hay River is. They may be mixing them up and I'm hoping that's what's happening.

I'd asked the Minister what is the status on the permitting which will allow work to happen on the channel where coast guard has repeatedly been grounded? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned, we have the proposal in under the Ocean Protection Plan. We had a lot of community support up the valley, all the way from Aklavik. So I mean, this is a priority. Once we get a response on the funding, then we will start some of the work that's much needed to complete the harbour restoration as well as, you know, in our funding proposal, we asked for some money for double haul barges. We asked for four years of funding for the Hay River restoration. So, I mean, once we get that approval, that sets the stages on how we proceed with this project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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