Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister for Infrastructure.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to talk about the Taltson project. So the Taltson project is being developed by way of a steering committee that involves the GNWT as well as Indigenous governments who are traditional landholders in the watershed region. Steering committee has to meet and have the first -- does need to make a decision about the potential routing. With that decision, then we can move to finalizing a business case but that is the next decision that needs to be made. I certainly have been asking as to when that steering committee will be happening. I understand that that should be -- there should be the next steering committee in the month of March, and then that should allow us to proceed forward. Once we have that, we can also be making our applications for permitting and obviously that is a critical next step. But getting that decision on routing is the next part. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thank you to the Minister. Can the Minister update the standing committee after that meeting has been completed and any updates around routing or any other decisions that have been made? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would be very happy to come to standing committee as soon as that decision is made. With that we can also bring forward to them an update on the business case as that will assist in determining what that business case should be once we, of course, know the routing. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Of course there's other forms of clean energy but often they aren't good enough for the Northwest Territories given our high need for quality energy. Is nuclear on the table and has -- I'll just ask the Minister that. Is nuclear energy on the table? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, I think that's an excellent question for this House. It certainly traditionally hasn't been something that's been widely considered or widely discussed in the Northwest Territories. But the reality is we have over 20 different energy grids scattered across the territories. We're not linked into the North American energy infrastructure. And it may well be that the future of nuclear, as it's proving to develop and if it's proving to be safe, could well be a direction that the Northwest Territories wishes to go, that communities want to go. And so that certainly is a conversation that should be had publicly and should be had with regions and Indigenous governments and community governments. Thank you.

Minister of Infrastructure. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'd be more than happy to report back. I can say certainly beginning in the last government, I had an opportunity to have some Saskatchewan Research Council folks meet with members of our government, senior officials. I'd like to follow up on that work myself. I do know the GNWT is a part of a federal, provincial, territorial SMI working group that's led by Enercan or Natural Resources Canada. So we do have our finger on the pulse of what's happening but, again, a bit of pressure never hurts to be making sure that we are at the forefront of those conversations as they may be relevant to a future here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Minister of Infrastructure. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back to the first questions for Minister of ECE. I sent her an email earlier today so hopefully from there will consider changing a policy. But I don't feel like she answered the questions so I'm going to ask her the same questions but differently.

Mr. Speaker, what if a family has double or more the number of children than calculated in the Northern Market Basket Measure? How does the Minister consider the cost for more children in the family than are measured under the Northern Market Basket Measure? Thank you.

Member from Monfwi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I always like to do my best to answer questions, but I simply don't have the level of detail about how particular dollars are calculated for each family and how their children are calculated in that. I'd be really happy to get that information from the department and to be able to share that with the Member. So if the Member is willing to either do a written question in the House so that that can be shared widely or, if the Member would prefer, I can correspond by email in regards to the finer details of that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I will do that.

Please do the questions, folks. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just want to follow up with a couple more questions to the Minister of housing. Just moving forward, though, before 2038 what are the Housing NWT's plans for their public housing assets and public housing debts? Thank you.

Thank you, Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh. Minister of Housing NWT.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there was two questions to that question. So the first question was on assets that the Northwest Territories -- or the Housing NWT holds and what the plans are for those homes, if I'm not mistaken.

From what I understand, we have over 300 homes that are 50 years and older, so Housing NWT is doing a review on those homes. And we also have many homes that are 30 years and older, so another -- we need to do another review on that.

In terms of the second question, I don't have that detail right now, but I can provide the Member information offline as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

(audio) anyway. Thank you. I was going to tease a little bit but thank you to the Minister for her answer.

Going forward, after -- as you know the 20th Assembly is going to be going through some fiscal constraints, etcetera. Can the Minister share with the House maybe as to how they're going to deal with their overall structure and maybe even staff and that kind of thing, so I just want to have an idea on that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. A very general question and open-ended as well. What are we doing as Housing NWT realizing that one of the priority number one for this 20th Assembly is the affordability, suitability, and accessibility of housing. I think it's the 20th's responsibility to make sure that housing continues to be a priority of this government. And what we're going to do as Housing NWT to respond to this priority is some work that is being done and being done on the mandate and delivering that mandate to the House. So, again, we have to look at things. We have to analyze things. We have over a hundred staff with Housing NWT. We have 22 maybe local housing associations, organizations. So a lot of work being done at the local level. Like I mentioned, the housing units and the state of housing units, especially those that are 50 years and older, so a lot of concerns in that. Plus a declining fund with CMHC and the continued collaboration with our Indigenous governments. So a lot of work that's ongoing. And we hope to continue this work and continue these discussions so Housing NWT can be successful. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, thank you. And thank you to the Minister for her response. I guess while I'm thinking about it, the 20th Assembly has -- have priorities and housing is part of that. Going forward, though, in the next prior to 2038, if an Indigenous government wants to come forward to make application to CIRNAC, etcetera, how can we work with them in partnership to help guide them to make application for housing for their communities and homeownership repairs? Thank you.

Mr. Speaker, one of the great things of the 19th Assembly is it came up with the strategic renewal plan, and there's 42 initiatives with that strategic renewal, and the NWT Housing forum and the partnerships with Indigenous governments was introduced at the time and it continues to this day. So through the work of the NWT Housing forum and the Council of Leaders, NWT Housing -- or Housing NWT staff have these conversations on a daily basis with Indigenous governments. So I think the work continues. The discussions continue. We all want to see success for Housing NWT throughout the North, and we want to add more homes, and we also want to maintain the homes that we have in our current stock. So there's a lot of promise, and I hope to continue that work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Housing NWT. Final supplementary. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

Mr. Speaker. Thank you, Minister. Going forward, can the housing corporation -- sorry, Housing NWT work with Indigenous governments to undertake projects in their community rather than have it tendered out in Yellowknife, and the communities are looking for work. They want to train their own people and that kind of thing. And that could probably be done through a partnership agreement or universal partnership agreement. Is that something the Minister could look at? Thank you.