Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ultimately the decision of where the North Slave campus will go rests with the board of governors, so I would need to make sure that I'm getting direction from the board of governors as to whether or not they would like to hold on to that site or see that MOU go. But for right now, I don't have that information because that's not a decision that rests with the GNWT; it's a decision that ultimately rests with the board. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Final supplementary. Member from Great Slave.

Yes, but as I said in my Member's statement, the board then threw it back to you when I asked them the same question.

Many Yellowknifers believe there was inadequate public consultation, a flawed site options analysis for this location. Will ECE commit to adequate public consultation and a transparent site evaluation process? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, I hear the Member. I heard the Member's statement. I hear the Member's concerns of her constituents that she continues to raise. The intent of doing the site assessments was to determine whether or not the site was, even to begin, viable for a North Slave campus. And so as always, there is a commitment to keep the public informed, to seek meaningful input on decisions that absolutely may affect residents of the Northwest Territories, and so I want to recognize and acknowledge that the Tin Can Hill is obviously a site that's very important to the residents of Yellowknife and the Northwest Territories and that should any further steps be taken beyond the -- or sorry, once the conclusion of the environmental site assessment and that information is made public, then for sure there would absolutely be public engagement that would occur.

I think it's worthwhile here, Mr. Speaker, informing this House and members of the public that while I have oversight over post-secondary, I do not have oversight over the operations of Aurora College. The board of governors does maintain that control. And while I -- it is my authority to open and close campuses on the recommendation of the board of governors, ultimately where within a community that piece of property resides is the authority of the board of governors. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Oral questions. Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, my questions are for the Minister of ITI. When we're looking at workforce planning for capital projects, what analysis are we employing to help us plan to ensure that we're maximizing northern employment? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Frame Lake. Minister of Industry, Tourism, and Investment.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Department of Finance has a number of procurement practices, and the strongest one being the Business Incentive Policy that is used for procurement practices with all GNWT procurement. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, respectfully, I'm asking about workforce planning, not necessarily procurement. When we're looking at workforce planning for capital projects, so planning out how this project is going to be implemented in such a way and what needs to be done to ensure that there is a workforce to implement the project, a northern workforce, what analysis are we employing to help us plan to ensure we're maximizing northern employment? Sorry to repeat the question, Mr. Speaker, but I just felt that the answer was speaking more to procurement than employment.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd say one of the strongest workforce planning documents and tools that we use within the Government of the Northwest Territories is our Skills 4 Success document. And that document has a -- it acts as kind of a Bible, if you will, of what jobs are and will be in demand over the course of the next 20 years in the Northwest Territories. So that document works by looking at, you know, what are the expected capital infrastructure happenings in the Northwest Territories and what skill sets are we going to need. So that talks about positions of leadership, it talks about trades positions. It's identified 20 different trades positions that we will need. Thankfully, earlier today we were able to celebrate 33 new journeypersons in the Northwest Territories as well. In addition to that, we also have plans, like for example the revitalization of the Great Slave Lake fishery. So in addition to our Skills 4 Success, we also have very specific documents within different sectors and those documents have deliverables as well. So, for example ECE and ITI teamed up on that one. ECE was able to offer subsidies, ITI was able to offer grants, and we were able to really work to make some great change in that sector over the last few years. And so there is a primary document but also very sector-specific ones as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a much more comprehensive answer and more along the lines of what I was looking for.

Mr. Speaker, considering these plans that we have in place across sectors, why aren't we making more progress or increasing northern employment figures at the diamond mines, projects like Giant Mine, or even GNWT contracted projects? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I guess there's a couple different ways that I can answer this question. And I'm not trying to be evasive of the Member at all. I think there's a few different ways that we can kind of interpret these questions. But for within the example say of diamond mine, fly-in/fly-out work is not for everyone. I know over the course of the last two decades, a lot of people who started working in diamond mining aren't necessarily there. Some have chosen to return to employment in their communities or return to life at home. But certainly a fly-in/fly-out isn't for anyone -- or everyone.

One piece of good news is that a lot of the advanced project mining are on existing road infrastructure or around and centered around communities. So, for example Pine Point, people will be able to drive to mine sites. You know, we're looking at -- or hearing about -- good news about gold mining close to Yellowknife. We're hearing about a mining project close to Fort Simpson. And so that will really change the dynamic that currently exists at a lot of our bigger mines in the Northwest Territories. Some work that is being done in order to improve some of our numbers in the Northwest Territories as well are looking at things like our curriculum renewal, making sure that we are focused on affording students the education that they want in order to meet our desire to see as many northerners employed in these projects and also working with organizations like the Mine Training Society and dev corps as well to make sure that it really is everybody working together at the end of the day to connect people to the training opportunities that do exist in the Northwest Territories. We have a number of training programs and subsidies within the Department of Education, Culture and Employment, and we want to make sure ultimately that people are taking advantage of them because we really do want to see Northerners successful in the workforce. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of ITI. Final supplementary. Member from Frame Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I appreciate, again, the comprehensive answer from the Minister. I always appreciate these exchanges where we go back and forth like this and get these comprehensive answers on the table.

Regarding Pine Point, I'm glad she brought that one up because the Standing Committee on Economic and Development and Environment recently met with some representatives from Pine Point, and they were saying one of their big challenges is going to be finding employees to staff this mine, that we're simply not producing the numbers of trades people that they're going to need. So I guess what I would ask the Minister is how can we move the needle on this? How can we ensure that we are preparing Northerners to enter the workforce, to shift into positions that are available in the workforce, so that we don't have this problem of creating economic activity that Northerners can't benefit from? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. I'm very thankful for this question. I had the opportunity in June to travel with a number of deputy ministers down to the Pine Point mine site where we had an incredible tour of what was there before, what they envision being there tomorrow and years down the road. The good news here is that we've got a few years to put together the trades people that they need. One of the things that I asked them for on that tour was their workforce planning document of exactly what trades people that they will need so that we can make sure that we're supporting that in the Northwest Territories.

One of the key things that we need here, Mr. Speaker, is employers who can support trades people, so that is employers that can support our SNAP students. If you are a red seal journeyperson in the Northwest Territories and you can support a student whether you live in Yellowknife, and hopefully outside of Yellowknife as well, we need employers to be able to support these students so that we can grow more trades people. That is the number one thing I would say today that I need is the support of employers so that we can get more people trained up and through the system. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of ITI. Colleagues, we've had three sets of question, and we spent 20 minutes on answers and preamble. Please be succinct in your questions and succinct in your answers. Thank you very much.

Oral questions. Member from the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my statement on the winter road preparations for this coming season in the Sahtu -- and I just remind the House it's an annual resupply. And so my first question to the Minister of Infrastructure, when can the Minister of Infrastructure be available to meet the project contractors/participants to engage in preparation discussions similar to last year? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from the Sahtu. Minister of Infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would expect -- I expect that the officers and the -- the project officers in the department, officials there, are already doing that. They've certainly been expected to do that for some time. We know that there's going to be more traffic on those winter roads this season just as there was last season when there was less barges. With no barges, fully expecting that road to be busy. So those meetings are already underway. Mr. Speaker, it was -- certainly, it was helpful for me to meet with some of those involved last year just to get a real picture of it, to have that opportunity, and I'm certainly happy to do that again and can work with the MLA for the region and for perhaps from the Nahendeh region since folks are coming through that area as well. We want to make sure we're maximizing everyone's ability to get as much through that winter road as possible. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for that reply. In addition to my statement of cargo and fuel and essential services going into the Sahtu, we've got another developer that's going to be coming there to the Sahtu to do some activity around the Colville Lake area. I'm not too sure if the Minister's aware of that, but that'll be additional traffic.

My next question: Will the Minister confirm this preseason/prejob meeting, if that can be held in Norman Wells? This will give us -- I plan to attend -- and other opportunities for other engagements. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I can confirm on behalf of the department that someone's going to be there. There's no question that some representatives -- senior representatives from the department can go. I want to just double check my own calendar. I've got commitments already to -- a couple of other regions where I've been waiting to get to. So certainly best efforts on my part. I'm always happy to go back. I've been to Norman Wells here a couple of times already in this government. Happy to go back. If I can't be there in person, I'll certainly make sure that I'm available in some other means. But I also wouldn't want to delay having that in-person there in the region based on my calendar. So someone will be available to make sure we're there and, as I say, I'll make my best efforts. But it was a helpful meeting we had last year. Going to need to do more this year, and so I want to emphasize we all want to work together and have a task force that's moving this ahead. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Minister for that willingness to participate. I feel comfortable already that we'll have a safe discussion.

My next question: Will the Minister support more resources as similar actions taken last year during our January discussion to ensure that we have a suitable, durable road surface for the heavy truck traffic? Mahsi.

Mr. Speaker, absolutely we will have to prioritize that work again. Just by way of some example of what we did last year, we were widening the road that gave the ability for trucks to be going but also didn't impede smaller traffic with folks who may be doing their own personal resupply, had more signage, increased patrols, increased checkpoints, which was not only a safety issue; it helps increase the flow of traffic and make the flow of traffic better. And we've also had some increased maintenance, increased improvements. Again, everything we can do to keep the road in a state that people can continue to pass. Mr. Speaker, that worked well last time. We had positive feedback. We'll take any constructive feedback on that as well if folks have it available so we can continue to make it even better this year. Thank you.

thank you, Minister of Infrastructure. Final supplementary. Member from the Sahtu.