Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, that's an excellent observation by a member of the public. And it's a direction that we may well see ourselves moving towards in terms of being able to communicate better of what our successes and our challenges are in the space of being representative. We know that the Northwest Territories has a 50 percent Indigenous population, but it's quite right that the actual labour force is not necessarily a 50/50 split. And that may be owing to the age demographics, if people are too young or too old to be in the workforce for example. What we do find is that in the Northwest Territories our labour force is actually sitting at approximately 63 percent non-Indigenous. And then further challenges that we run into, Mr. Speaker, is that, in fact, of the group of people in the Northwest Territories in the labour force who are Indigenous, not as many had access or had the opportunity to obtain post-secondary education.

So, Mr. Speaker, understanding this, and then seeing what that barrier is to support residents so that they cannot only go get a position but that they can be applying and moving up in succession planning and moving into positions of management, it allows us to better identify the challenge at hand and identify the barriers at hand. And then as we report in on the individual targets of the different types of positions with different levels of requirement, we can make sure that we're supporting residents if they need training internally, if they need training to apply, if they need post-secondary access, or if we need to re-examine what our equivalencies are or what our actual job needs are. And all of that together, Mr. Speaker, I think will help us ultimately to be a more representative workforce. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Following up on my Member's statement, the town of Inuvik, Mr. Speaker, is well aware of what military spending looks like in the community. Pre-1986, there was 140 to 250 military personnel there as well as their families, which made up about 800, which were school kids that integrated into the community and teachers and nurses and that was the model -- the preferred model at the time. A lot of the leadership, Mr. Speaker, are still there. They lived through that time. So when the Premier talks about setting up an advisory council, or as my colleague from Yellowknife Centre has said, a committee, will the Minister -- will the Premier, sorry, ensure that when we set something up that we look at regions like Inuvik to ensure that we have representation on the committee that is expertise as we've talked about outside of this building that would fit excellent on a committee like that. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. Mr. Premier.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So there is no committee at this point. I'm not sure what the working group proposal looks like. So I can't really make any commitments around that. That being said, obviously there's a lot of value in ensuring that everyone's on the same page and everyone's communicating. And so we're in the early days of this interest in the North and talking about investments and Arctic security. And my officials are working with officials from Joint Task Force North and the Department of National Defence, and we share information as required. And I know that officials from the Department of National Defence, or Joint Task Force North perhaps, are in contact with officials in the Member's community in Inuvik. I know that they're disseminating information as well. That being said, once we get to a point where we need to ramp up and ensure that we're all, you know, working together on the same page and in the same direction, I'll ensure that all voices, all relevant voices are at the table. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thanks to the Premier. I appreciate that, and I know the Premier's live to this, and I know he knows that I get plenty of e-mails and telephone calls from my community on this as military, again, as I've stated before, is important to my community, to my region.

So, you know, the Premier's people and the people in Inuvik, everyone is aware and everyone is speaking to each other, I guess if the Premier is planning to send a delegation or heading to the -- I noted in my statement there's meetings at the end of May between Joint Task Force North, the Department of National Defence, with our territory as well as Yukon and Nunavut, would the Premier consider looping in potentially the mayors of Inuvik and Iqaluit for that? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I think the Member might be talking about the Arctic security working group, which is an officials' level working group. They meet twice a year. I believe it's once in Yellowknife, once in the Yukon, and so this time it's in the Yukon. And we are not organizing that, the Joint Task Force North. I believe the Yukon might be co-hosting it so they might have a role in it. But we're not in a position to invite anyone to attend this event. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Premier. Final supplementary. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I just hope the Premier will use his significant influence in that situation.

I also mentioned that there's a conference taking place in the Yukon this month called Conference Zero which is their Arctic security council have set up through funding through CanNor. Will the Premier or anyone from his office be attending that conference? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I won't be able to attend that conference, and so we're still looking at options to ensure that there is some sort of presence there from the Northwest Territories. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So following up on my Member's statement, my questions are for the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

So even for those projects we may have decided are necessary, like roads, we need environmental assessments with full and open participation by scientists and traditional knowledge experts in order to make them the best they can be. So on a project like the Mackenzie Valley Highway, once the GNWT's already submitted its developer's assessment report, as the government did in 2023, are there any further opportunities within the environmental assessment process for those government-employed scientists to engage in the back and forth dialogue with TK experts about how to make the project better? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, there is much discussion amongst all the parties during the environmental assessment process. And, you know, the feedback from all of those parties is very important as well because that's what actually improves the project as we move forward. ECC, on this specific project, is supporting the Department of Infrastructure as the project lead, and infrastructure is engaging and working with traditional knowledge holders and communities in regards to advancing this project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So as I understand it, the role of the GNWT-employed scientists is to give their input and expertise internally before that gets fed into the process. Does the GNWT employ any traditional knowledge experts that the GNWT's scientists can engage internally with to have that dialogue? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, ECC is working with the Department of Infrastructure as the project lead to support the development of the project and providing technical advice in this regard. And as mentioned in my response to the first question, the GNWT is engaging and working with the traditional knowledge holders and the communities in regards to advancing the project. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I suppose I'll assume, unless directed otherwise, that the government is not employing traditional knowledge experts directly to have that internal dialogue.

But the final question is while I understand that government-employed scientists are still allowed to participate in responding to information requests, are those scientists allowed to collaborate with any other parties in issuing information requests as part of the environmental assessment process? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the GNWT is using a whole-of-government approach to the Mackenzie Valley Highway environmental assessment, similar to the approach that was used on the Tlicho All-Season Highway or the Giant Mine remediation project through those environmental assessments. And this approach involves collaboration between the GNWT, our subject-matter experts across the different departments, to consider the GNWT's submission within the board process. You know, our experts also work within that process, for example technical sessions, to hear input from other parties respond to concerns and, if warranted, adjust the approach through collaboration and discussion, which is always a really important part of this whole process. They also participate in hearings which truly are a quasi judicial process. And during that process, you know, they bring their opinion and their position on -- very freely on whatever questions are raised through that process. The GNWT project that will contribute to this -- this is in advancing our mandate, and all the departments are working together in this advancement, no different in how we are supporting infrastructure in this way on this specific project as other departments would support environment and climate change on initiatives initiated by our department. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Oral questions. Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I was not the Minister in the 19th Assembly. I'm happy to see if there was a study done on that stretch of road and to share whatever outcomes or recommendations there are with the Member for the region. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the Pine Point mine is looking at restarting up again sometime in the near future and my question, again, now is the Minister of Infrastructure is that is there also another study on this road for high traffic demands on that road? Thank you.