Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And well that is good news to hear. That's what the previous Ministers have said. And I still -- recently, I forward her a letter -- letters from my constituents, the elders, who are in that situation where they have to pay $1,000, which many of them are saying that they cannot afford, the 10 percent required for repair program, and I just recently send her some. And there are deadline attached to those. So can the Minister allow the 10 percent equity in the seniors repair program to be paid in installment by clients, because it is still in place. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. What we can do is we can refer this back to Housing NWT and get the information to the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you. It's good that, you know, for them to review that. Okay, can the Minister commit to transferring North Slave housing office from Yellowknife that specifically deals with Tlicho communities to provide better services to people, especially the elders who are faced with many challenges. And I've said this many times. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'd have to get back to the Member about the transfer and look into the information before I can commit to anything. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister for Housing NWT. Final supplementary. Member from Monfwi.

This is in reference to the income threshold. So it's still -- it's referenced to income threshold. So will the Minister adjust the income threshold for seniors support program based on higher cost of living for elders in small and remote communities? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. With the review of the core need income threshold over the next year, this will be all reviewed and that will include seniors and elders living in small remote communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Housing NWT. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the issues I raised up around foreign investments in our minerals industry, the House of Commons committee on industry and trade is seeking a national security review into Vital Metals' sale -- shares of Vital Metals sold to a state-owned company under the Investment Canada act. The Minister -- the federal minister of industry has said he will block the sale of Canadian assets to state-owned enterprises. So my question for our industry Minister, industry, tourism and investment that is, is do we have a similar mechanism to assess security risks that are coming from foreign investment here in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.

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

Thank you very much. I'll respond to many things; that's okay. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we don't have a similar mechanism to that. We here in the Northwest Territories, that type of responsibility would fall to the federal government under the Investment Canada Act and if they choose to do a review and they need the support of the GNWT, ITI would certainly participate in any means that they needed us to. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And obviously foreign affairs or global affairs is a federal responsibility, but it seems that given the interest in these minerals, and all critical minerals, that we ought to consider this issue. So is the Minister looking into how we can assess investment and maybe work with Ottawa behind the scenes on these kind of investments and whether or not they are in the best interests of Northerners. Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. And, Mr. Speaker, what I want to start off by saying actually here is that I actually want to thank the Member for giving me the opportunity to speak about this on the floor of the House. I know this is something that has been in -- I like to talk a lot, Mr. Speaker. Okay. Okay, right to it, then.

Foreign investment is not all bad, Mr. Speaker. Foreign investment is something that Canada relies on, and foreign investment is something that our critical mineral mining absolutely relies on right now. And so what I can say to the Member right now is we are constantly monitoring all of our investments in all of the companies that operate within the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

Thank you. And to be clear, no one's anti-investment here but what we want is the right kind of investment. And when we know we have an adversarial government with a strangle hold on the market, this requires some new policy tools. The Yukon has a security council that's been created. Will the Minister work with the Premier to create a similar council to assess these kind of concerns? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Government of the Northwest Territories is well aware of the securities council that the government of Yukon has put in place. We were excited to see some of the names on that council because those are people that we have had the opportunity to work with here at the Government of the Northwest Territories in the past and that we look forward very much to seeing the results of that securities council. But as far as what the Premier will choose to do, that question would have to go to the Premier. I can say, though, that we have priority setting next week and this might be a topic of conversation next week for all of caucus. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of ITI. Final supplementary. Member for Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a helpful thing if we could build that into our priorities. What is the Minister doing to ensure we attract the right kind of investment from friendly sources in the United States and Europe? Thank you.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we just had the opportunity as Cabinet -- well, there was four of us, plus we also had another MLA from the other side, the MLA for the Sahtu, that went down to Roundup in the last month. We had the opportunity to speak to many different players, so to speak, in the critical minerals and mineral extraction field and landscape. I also have the opportunity in the next month to travel to Ottawa where I will still be continuing to have conversations with private industry, with Indigenous governments, and also with the federal government. And all of these topics that we discuss here are going to be discussions that continue there.

Mr. Speaker, I think it's also really important in this conversation to reiterate that one of the most important things about this is relationships, and relationships are paramount when it comes to operating in the Northwest Territories. And that was a message that we delivered loud and clear when we were at Roundup and speaking with industry in Vancouver last month. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of ITI. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So my first set of questions are for the Minister of Finance, and if there's time after, I have additional questions for the Minister of Infrastructure.

So currently the net carbon tax revenues after we hand out the offset payments, they go into the GNWT's general revenues, and this could be 14 to $20 million per year but the public cannot see how these revenues are contributing to climate change solutions. So will this government commit to ensure that all net carbon tax revenues go towards climate change mitigation and adaptation programs in the NWT with transparent public reporting on the spending? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Finance.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So just one follow-up here: So I know that we've consistently heard from the government that it's not a good idea to have a specific revolving fund but I've also -- we've also heard from the public that there's demand for that kind of transparency.

Can the Minister explain if there are specific technical barriers or legislative barriers to instituting such a revolving fund which would provide greater transparency and understanding for the public as to how we're investing in climate change alternatives?

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, having a revolving fund where you take a specific amount of money and put that aside, typically it's used for Crown corporations, for example for the airport where there's money in and -- going in and going out. It allows an entity to operate and conduct its operations with that revolving fund. Having it where there's a revenue source coming in and we take that percentage out, one of the concerns is that you actually wind up saying, all right, here's the $10 million that we're going to use for this initiative. And I think the Member's statement laid out quite well why carbon tax should really only be part of what we're doing, and we need to be looking at the impacts of climate change in the North, the impacts of GHG emissions. The fact that we're on the front lines of climate change, we need to be spending probably a lot more than just the amount that we're getting on the carbon tax to actually advance this. So that is one part of the hesitancy around a revolving fund. But, again, as I said, I do understand that we need to find a better way to explain to the public what we're doing with not only this fund but with a lot of the funds spread across multiple departments. And I am committed to finding a better way to do that. Thank you.