Thank you, Member from Hay River South. Members' statements.

Good afternoon, Colleagues. I am going to advise you this is going to be a very difficult Celebration of Life to do.

Avery Julianna Burke was born on May 4th, 2018, at the BC Women's Hospital to Maureen Deneron and Preston Burke. She was the third youngest of four siblings. She spent her first two years of her life in Fort Nelson, BC, before moving to Sambaa K'e with her grandmother, Bertha Deneron.

Avery loved being with her grandmother. She was a great help to her grandmother. She loved helping do dishes, folding clothes, all the while singing away to the various songs. Her favorite music was the fiddle, especially when her sister Katrina played the fiddle. She would grab her little brother's hand and they would dance up a storm. Their smiles made the home even brighter.

She was a very outdoor type of person. She loved to put up rabbit snares and cherished when she was successful. Even at a young age, she was able to remove the snares without much trouble thanks to her grandmother teaching. She like to go chicken hunting with her sisters, who was very good shot. Once they got a chicken, she would get right to the task of plucking it. She would be heard saying "we got Grandma's supper' with a big smile.

Avery loved to look for animal track, especially in the winter. She was always curious about the various animals, their tracks, and asked tons of questions about them and their home. Like a true northerner, her favorite food was dry meat, dry fish, bannock, fruit, and moose meat with broth. Her sister Katrina like spending time with her, making endless drawings or letting her be part of whatever her and her other sister were doing. I can tell you she didn't seem to have a bad day. She loved to laugh, dance, sing with her siblings, especially with her cousin Peyton. When it came to school, she had a huge passion for it. She loved her teachers and classmates. She would go to bed Sunday excited because she got to go to school Monday morning. She would get to learn and see her teacher and classmates.

When she had time, she loved spending time with her baby brother. They would enjoy playing together and she would teach him how to do things.
As the family said, she was their little ray of sunshine. She was so innocent and intelligent. She was way too precious for this world and had to leave us. I can tell you before she passed away on January 4th, she told her mother she was going to come back as a big tree and look after her baby brother. She was deeply loved and will be terribly missed by all her family and friends.

Members' statements. Returns to oral questions. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Mr. Speaker, I'd like to recognize and, more importantly, thank Sheila Nasogaluak, my constituency assistant from Inuvik. Thank you.

Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Seeing nobody else recognizing visitors. For the others that are here, thank you very much for allowing us to be in your home and welcome to our proceedings. It's great to have visitors here at this time.

Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Acknowledgements. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I want to commend the Premier for his team -- for being part of the Team Canada response to the US tariff threat. And I'd like to ask today where -- what the status of that approach is. Where are Canada's premiers and the Prime Minister on ensuring that we can overcome this challenge to our economic sovereignty in the next 30 days? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Mr. Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I'm sure everyone has heard that the Prime Minister spoke with President Trump yesterday -- or sorry, I believe it was Monday. They had a discussion, and President Trump said that he was going to delay the implementation of the tariffs by 30 days. And so that's where we are right now.

Across Canada, governments -- provincial and territorial governments were going to enact measures, just as ours was; for example, removing American products from the liquor stores, stopping procurement of American goods, and any other tariff measures that we can define to help support these efforts. We've paused those efforts, as I believe most jurisdictions have, but we haven't stopped preparing. So we're continuing to prepare, continuing to examine what other non-tariff options that we have, and how we can better support Team Canada. I had a call today with the Prime Minister and all of the premiers. We had one on Saturday. We had one last week. And all of the jurisdictions are doing what they can. I can tell you it's a very cohesive group despite any political differences across party lines. It is a united Team Canada approach from coast to coast to coast. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I thank the Premier. I mean, I'm jealous I'm not a part of those calls because it would be great to call Donald Trump's bluff and beat him at his own game. So thank you for that.

Mr. Speaker, have the Canada's premiers had a discussion about eliminating interprovincial trade barriers, getting, you know -- winning this war is one thing, but we have to build for the future. That's a big part of this. So what progress are we making on eliminating interprovincial trade barriers? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is a committee in Canada that is made up of all 13 provinces and territories as well as the federal government. That's the committee on internal trade. Each year a different jurisdiction chairs that committee. Starting in 2025, the NWT is the chair of the committee on internal trade. Last week, Minister Cleveland called an emergency meeting of the committee. They met on Friday, and they brought forward recommendations. They're very high-level recommendations, but they speak to many of the things the Member is talking about. We are looking to reduce internal trade barriers across Canada in a serious way, and we're looking to increase labour mobility. And so work is underway. Both of these are issues that had been long standing in Canada, and there hasn't been the political will to actually get them dealt with. They do take a lot of work. It will take legislative change across every jurisdiction. It will take some jurisdictions giving up a sacred cow that they just don't want to, but it if there ever was a political will to make that work happen, now is the time. And if we do that, even if we cut our trade barriers by half, we're going to see an impact on our Canada-wide GDP and so it's a real -- it's a real effort to make real change in Canada, and I'm very hopeful that we're going to see that change soon. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That is good news as well. Mr. Speaker, another thing that this crisis has prompted is taking a look at energy security in Canada. We're talking about getting oil and gas to market -- or sorry, to ports and to finding new ports. The Northwest Territories is one of the largest supplies of oil and gas in the world. Can the Premier tell us if he is pursuing that opportunity and how we are going to unlock this resource to benefit not only Canada's security but northern security as well? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And probably a question more suited for the industry Minister because I know that work has been going on in this area, especially up in the Beaufort Delta region, and there's a lot of hope about what that could bring. The resource that we have right now that a lot of the world's attention is on is critical minerals. And so I'm having lots of conversations at the first Ministers' meetings that I just mentioned as well as virtually everywhere I go, because we recognize we need secure supply chains in Canada. If there are tariffs from the United States, that disrupts supply chains. We have tariffs with China. We can't necessarily always rely on China to provide what we need. And so now is the time that we as a country need to come together and ensure that we have sustainable supply chains so that we can create prosperity for Canada. We can do mining here. We can do refining here. We can do manufacturing here. And we can have the innovation industry to develop those products that we're manufacturing. We can do it all in Canada, Mr. Speaker. And there's a real push underway right now to make that happen. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Will the Premier withhold the NWT's critical minerals from American -- from imports or exports to America? Thank you. [Audio] tariffs.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a decision of the federal government, and the federal government has said everything's on the table. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Mr. Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So an update on F35 facilities, the Mackenzie Valley Highway, and the Bathurst port, so that's quite a bit of information. I don't think I can get it all to the Member here. But I've met with the Minister of National Defence, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the Prime Minister, the Minister of Northern Affairs, and these are what the topics that we talk about. I have these same conversations with my northern Premier colleagues, and together we push for infrastructure development in the North. And I know that the Prime Minister is listening and has unprompted -- reiterated those comments back. And so I know that is on their mind, and they recognize the importance of this. And so we are always pushing these projects. I'll leave it there. I won't get too far into the details of, you know, where we are with these projects. Timelines and things like that is probably better suited for a different Minister. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, listening is great, but it doesn't put food on the table. It doesn't put gas in the car. It doesn't buy Christmas presents, etcetera, Mr. Speaker. So I'm going to ask the Premier what type of campaign is the territorial government doing through his department of executive to launch and suggest this is the best investment opportunity for the North, but it's also the best investment for them to help meet their 2 percent requirements. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I said earlier, the eyes of the world are on the North now and the discussions about Arctic security, defence, have taken up an inordinate amount of my time. I can say I did not expect this when I became Premier of the Northwest Territories I'd be having these national discussions and international discussions, but the fact is we are. And so what I can do from my end as a politician is talk to the politicians who are making decisions about what we need for infrastructure. And so we have provided detailed information to the federal government about the types of projects that we want to advance. When it comes to military installations, that's federal government jurisdiction, but I have told the federal government we need to work with them on those. We need to ensure that any military facilities in the North provides benefits to the North and that the Indigenous governments on whose land those facilities are need to be part of those discussions. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, I'm asking the Premier what type of proactive aggressive campaign are we selling? When the territorial government went so far as building the Inuvik-Tuktoyaktuk Highway, it wasn't just cap in hand saying we'll wait until they do this. Mr. Speaker, I'm asking the Premier is he willing to look at either striking a formal committee to get Members, including Cabinet, to work on an aggressive campaign to sell these types of initiatives. Because if we sit here and do nothing, that's exactly what we'll get, being polite, but we'll be overlooked. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is a team to sell these projects to the federal government. It's your Executive Council, it's Cabinet, and we do it every single day. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.

Well, first of all, Mr. Speaker, this is the first time I've heard of this Cabinet team that's been selling this. I've not seen in one year any result to that. Hence I'll ask the question, would the Premier be willing to form a working group with some Regular Members so we can help push this initiative collectively and territorially so we don't miss this billion dollar opportunity. Thank you.