Thank you. Members, please now turn to page 50. Department of Industry, Tourism and Investment, minerals and petroleum resources. Questions?

Industry, Tourism and Investment, mineral and petroleum resources, infrastructure investments, $700,000. Does committee agree?

Thank you. Industry, Tourism and Investment, tourism and parks, infrastructure investments, $2,978,000. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, I can't let the last sitting go by and not ask about outhouses. So I know that this could also follow under the infrastructure area too around highways. But I note that there are a lot of parks work that are along the highway south, and it was really highlighted during the evacuation the facilities are woefully lacking down the highway and such. And so I note that there is one outhouse construction being planned here for Fred Henne Territorial Park. But I'm wondering has anything happened with the evacuation that has made the Minister feel that perhaps we do need to have more park outhouses and washrooms along our highway, or only road out. Thank you.

Thank you. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Madam Chair. If the issue is around an evacuation route, that probably does not fall within ITI. Certainly during the evacuation, infrastructure did take the lead in terms of providing some additional porta potties along the route and ensuring that there was some additional cleaning, as did ITI, to ensure that for the parks that are there -- in the parks along the way, that the outhouses that are there that they were receiving additional cleaning. I am -- I have received both side of this council in that I certainly did receive some complaints, but I also had other people that I was checking in with along the way to see, and some were saying that facilities were fine, and then of course I know that others perhaps get there at a different period of time. So the long answer, Madam Chair, if it's an evacuation situation, infrastructure was the lead on that, yes. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, there was money at one point notionally allocated for pull-outs along the Inuvik-Tuk Highway. Madam Chair, the challenge that we've run into is identifying the appropriate location and getting the hunters and trappers associations from the regions to, in fact, agree on a location, along with elders. Last I know there was some work and some progress made towards bringing those parties together. I would like nothing more than to see what really is a tourism flagship, or could and should be a tourism flagship, have those kinds of facilities.

Without them, it's not quite the flagship that it could be sending folks down an hour plus long road, hour and a half long road, without any kinds of facilities. So, you know, I think there is now a staff person that's been seconded into Tuktoyaktuk to help support their community with some of their tourism planning, and that may well be an opportunity to bring those interested in tourism in that region together to get that moving and to find agreement between those who are the owners of the land. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Yeah, I totally appreciate the complexity of that as well because I know those pull-outs and those recreational use areas will become quite -- quite popular with the public. So you definitely have to make sure that they're in the right spots. Just looking at some of these things here, I did have an opportunity to see the new -- some of the new work that had been done around the North Arm Park in the last couple of years and thought it was pretty good, and everything was looking quite good in a lot of our parks over the time. But I just wanted to point out too that not only not having the sort of pull-outs and areas along the Inuvik-Tuk Highway is not just a sort of discomfort thing, but it also becomes like an environmental and health issue if people are starting to use places for the washroom that they should not be. And I do believe that was another complaint I did hear through the evacuation that some of the sort of sandpit pull-out areas along the highway became basically large outhouses for people. So I do think it is something when we do emergency response and such that if we are going to evacuate people 15 hours south, we need to ensure they can go to the bathroom somewhere.

I think my other question has to do with has there been any talk around installing things like WiFi or cellular service into the territorial parks along -- along the highways south or the egress routes? I get, again, that this is ITI, but, again, duplicating effort, it would make sense that people could go in and use WiFi at campgrounds. And I'm not sure if that -- that might already be existing, and I'm just not aware. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, it is my understanding at this point that -- well, I don't have any information that we're putting that forward as a plan, as an idea in terms of having WiFi as a set available thing at a park. I mean, I think some parks do have access to it, and the extent that park users then can go and use it is, you know, I guess up to them. I think it's based on the Starlink program in most parks to the extent that -- again, I believe most of them have it. They are often operated by contractors. So if I'm hedging a bit, it's because it does somewhat depend on each contractor. But they do have access to Starlink. They were being used during the evacuation process. And, again, while we are in the ITI capital, Starlink was also made available for others along the route during the evacuation, and I think there's an understanding that that is, if anything, being improved upon having gone through the recent experiences that we did. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. I think -- I just wanted to ask a little bit about the Canol Trail and the emergency shelters. I am not super familiar with where this is at, but I did know at one point there was a lot of remediation that was still left around the Canol Trail. Without, you know, asking for too much detail, is that coming to completion to the point where the Canol Trail is going to be more of a tourism destination or, you know, have more areas opened up as a result of remediation? I know there was a lot of challenges remediating it because it's very inaccessible to heavy equipment so a lot of it would have had to have been done by hand. So if maybe the Minister could just give us a bit of an update on that, that would be great.

Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Madam Chair, Canol Trail is another one that could frankly be a bit of a flagship -- or it should be a flagship, not a bit of, but should be a flagship in the Northwest Territories. It does have a lot of sections that were still under ownership by the federal government, and there's some concern around overtaking that without doing the kind of proper due diligence to ensure that there's not an excessive amount of remediation that is required. So these -- ENR is the department that would be the lead in terms of that discussion with the federal government. This capital project is for shelters at Miles 175 and 200. I also at one point had a big large map in front of me on this. I don't have it memorized, but. These -- we are doing work just with some of these emergency shelters. So they're not really camping shelters per se. They're really meant to support those who are using the trail in the event that they needed an emergency shelter, exactly as described. But there's still quite a bit more to go on this to make the trail, I think, really what -- what I think probably the Member and myself would like to see. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Yes, I very much agree with the Minister on this one. It is such a rich part of our history and really could be, yes, like you said a -- she said, a flagship for that. I guess just wanting to confirm that these two North Arm projects for -- that are done in the region for Behchoko, those are both done under the Tlicho Infrastructure Agreement? Can the Minister confirm that.

Thank you. Minister.

That's correct, Madam Chair. Thank you.

Thank you. Member for Great Slave.

Thank you, Madam Chair. Is this the end of the work for the North Arm Park, or is it expected to continue into 2025-2026? Thank you.