Thank you, Member from Yellowknife North. Members' statements.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask the Minister of Health and Social Services about the recent very serious situation that happened at Stanton Territorial Hospital. The code that was called was a code white which means everyone from each department attends on -- at the site, what actually led to increasing risk to safety of those people who did attend. Other hospitals have code silvers which means shelter in place, more or less. Can the Minister -- and these issues have been raised with hospital management. Can the Minister explain why we don't have a code silver in place at Stanton Territorial Hospital? Thank you.

Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Health and Social Services.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, just to the code silver, there is a draft code silver policy that's been developed and since the beginning of this year, the policy is currently being reviewed by various stakeholders including the occupational health and safety and other various teams. Next steps will be to ask the RCMP to review. And then it will be circulated more broadly for feedback. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I'm sure health care workers are relieved to hear that. When does the Minister plan to have that fully in place? Thank you.

As this work is ongoing, Mr. Speaker, I can ensure that, you know -- that we, and I -- and I think any Member in this House -- do want to take health and safety of any of our public service very seriously. And so with this work that's going on, I don't have the exact details of when these things will happen but as I get more information from that, I can provide that in writing to Members as they wish and to the Member that's asking. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Minister for that commitment.

Mr. Speaker, another issue is the security at Stanton do not have the resources that they need to deal with situations like that. Is the Minister willing to review the security complement at the Stanton Territorial Hospital and ensure that they are properly resourced to deal with future violence at the ER?

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, and I appreciate that the Member is highlighting this. This is something that, you know, we always think that we live in a little bubble up here in the North and these kind of things are not going to happen to us but as I was in Halifax, there was another serious incident that happened there while we were there. And, you know, I hear it from my colleagues in Hay River, you know, the staff there are worried about the safety. And so we take this very seriously. And there is ongoing work right now learning from this specific incident, and any other incidents before but, you know, highlighting that the place that we're living right now with guns and violence and the toxic drugs that are affecting all of our communities now, we are looking at this and some improving and ongoing doing this work. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Oral questions. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, following up on my Member's statement, and Mr. Speaker, I know the Minister's live to this issue, I know the Minister cares about this issue. My first question is what are we doing and when are we finally going to resolve this issue of cabin leases in settled land claim areas? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And thank you to the Member for the question.

Mr. Speaker, this has been an area that has been top of mind for me. It was one of my priorities, my personal priorities when I came into the Assembly and became Minister, and there's been a lot of work done within the department. I certainly, much like the Member, would like to see the pace moving a little quicker than it is but, you know, very aware of the capacity of not only the department but the Indigenous governments to move this forward. We have a number of initiatives going. We've addressed a way to engage so that we can look at the program as a whole, and we've sent letters out. We have a meeting scheduled for early May to discuss some options. And, again, as I've stated before it's very important to me that we get the perspectives and the input from all of the Indigenous governments across the NWT to ensure that we're looking out for everyone's interest as we move forward. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, you know, we must commit to respecting the IFA, certainly in the Inuvialuit settlement area, and our obligations under this implementation. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister speak to any specific legislation that would have to be changed to make this happen? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as we are currently working through the process, we are working with -- through the Intergovernmental Council on land tenure on -- oh sorry, the Intergovernmental Council on land and resource management through the legislative development protocol. And as we're doing this, we're working on the establishment of finalizing the regulations toward the land tenure issue. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Final supplementary. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And I thank the Minister for that. I don't think I got a specific piece of legislation in there, and I'd note that now is not the time to negotiate; now is the time, again, to respect the legislation and the rules and the Indigenous agreements that are in place.

With that, Mr. Speaker, would the Minister once again commit to pausing all invoicing and all collections until this issue is finally resolved? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And apologies to the Member for my little stumble there. Currently we are working on reducing -- potentially reducing rents for Indigenous leaseholders that have traditional harvesting rights to potentially a dollar. Unfortunately, under the current legislation we're unable to go to zero. Certainly, we have the program in place, which came into force in 2023 which we've extended now, to pause collection on outstanding lease arrears. And we're certainly, you know, want to do everything we can as a department to work with all of the Indigenous governments across the NWT to ensure that we can, you know, support the implementation of those programs and happy to continue with that down that road and ensure that we are, you know, trying to get everyone to come over and sign up for the program that's interested in having their arrears paused. And if there are groups out there that would need additional assistance, happy to work on that as well. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Minister of Environment and Climate Change. Oral questions. Member from Mackenzie Delta.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There are only a few units -- market housing units within each of the communities throughout the NWT. They're housing our professional resource people who are coming into our communities to assist in healing our residents. We have limited housing available within our smaller communities, and this is the only option some of our resource people may have. Has the department looked at other options to increase revenue rather than imposing a rent increase on only a select few? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Member from Mackenzie Delta. Minister responsible for Housing NWT.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. At this time, the department is considering a number of different options to increase revenues with Housing NWT. But market rental rates have not changed since 2012, 2013, and this is a possible -- this is a possible revenue for Housing NWT because it does subsidize our public housing units. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.