Thank you, Member from Monfwi. Recognition of visitors in the gallery.

Welcome, Mr. Powder. It's great to see you here again.

If we've missed anyone in the gallery here today, welcome to your chambers. I hope you are enjoying the proceedings. It is always nice to see people in the gallery. And thank you very much for allowing us to represent you here today and for the residents of the Northwest Territories.

Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Acknowledgements. Oral questions. Member from Yellowknife Centre.

All right, thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm excited to ask questions to the Premier regarding his upcoming wonderful trip to Saskatoon, and I'd like to know little details and hopefully, we can share this within the House. Specifically, Mr. Speaker, what is the plan or what will the Premier be proposing at this First Minister's conference with the Prime Minister of Canada that suits -- that lines up with the mandate of the NWT but also some of our major significant infrastructure projects; and, lastly, especially noting the tone of the Prime Minister to build and be bold. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We've had a pretty consistent approach to dealing with the Prime Minister's office. We are advancing our federal priorities. When I meet with the Prime Minister, I speak about the need to settle land claims. That was actually what we talked about the last time that I spoke with him and then the next thing I know we have the Minister of Crown Indigenous Relations is from the Northwest Territories. So I don't know if that is a coincidence or if they're listening, but I think that's very promising.

I speak about things that the Prime Minister is interested in, things like nation building projects, Slave Geological Province Corridor, Taltson Hydro Electric Expansion, the Mackenzie Valley Highway. I talk about how we work with Indigenous governments in the Northwest Territories, how we have a co-management system that the federal government is actually part of, and they need to be more involved if we want to get things moving forward. So I do my best to put things out there that the Prime Minister can say yes to and that will stick with him so that when they go back and they make their decisions, the Northwest Territories is at the front of their mind. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Earlier in the return to oral questions, the Premier had answered some of my questions with respect to the -- our Ottawa czar. So what advice is he giving us on a political tactic to approach the Prime Minister to find some yeses on our wish list at this particular meeting he's having in Saskatoon? Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. And it is political advice that is being given by the senior envoy to the Government of Canada. We don't have any czars in the government that I'm aware of, no positions at least named "czar." So I work with the senior envoy to, you know, pick his brain on, you know, what he's seen in the past, get information about past decisions made in Ottawa, some of that insight that you might not get, you know, through the media or through a briefing note. And so the type of advice that he gives is quality. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, there was, I think earlier in the return to oral questions, the Premier did cite that he's paid at a deputy minister III up to 300 and I think $26,000. It was actually more than the Prime Minister gets paid, oddly enough. But out of -- I would hope that, Mr. Speaker, that the Premier could be very specific as to what advice he's getting so he can approach the Prime Minister on these initiatives -- he's already lists them, I don't need to go through them -- and what type of political advice he's giving the Premier to help work in collaboration to get the national support on our national infrastructure projects. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I believe I've already answered the Member's question. Thanks.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment.

So as part of the public briefing this morning, the government's presentation stated that in return for accepting this relief, the diamond mines agreed to several commitments including to use commercially reasonable efforts to maintain operations until their planned closure dates. So can the Minister explain whether the commitment to use commercially reasonable efforts to maintain operations represents any change whatsoever from the status quo or, rather, would we always expect businesses to use commercially reasonable efforts in everything that they do? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

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

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, certainly in the Northwest Territories, we do always expect businesses to use reasonable efforts, to use local employment, local labour, and to really ensure that collectively and as a community we're really focused on benefit retention for Northerners. That said, I can't predict what would have happened but we were in the face of a very difficult decision that some of the diamond mines were facing. We know that globally it is a very difficult market for diamonds right now, and we also know that in the NWT that diamond mines provide a lot of our GDP. They provide upwards of 21 percent. They provide a lot of funding to businesses. They provide a lot of jobs to Northerners that Northerners rely on, and so what we were investing in were those jobs. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the department explained in a briefing that the property tax relief is a, quote, "temporary measure." So does this mean that if profits rebound, we should expect the mines to repay the subsidies? So by "temporary", is this meant to be kind of a temporary loan? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, the relief in the form of property taxes and foregoing the property taxes was a one-time, one-year-for-this-year relief measure that the Government of the Northwest Territories, under direction of Cabinet, took. It is not a long-term solution. It is a right now -- an acknowledgement of the global diamond market and cost of doing business in the Northwest Territories and also the significance to northern employers, to northern workers, that the diamond mines play. Thank you.

Thank you, Minister of ITI. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife North.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So the Minister also said in her statement that these subsidies are not about supporting mines; they're about supporting people. So if that's the case, did the Minister consider investing the $15 million directly into retraining and supporting the workers or the Indigenous development corporations so they can be better prepared to transition once the mines do close, whether that's a year or a few years from now? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I'm all about return on investment. I think that we should be putting our dollars into places where we have significant amount of investments.

In regards to the dollars that we did invest in the diamond mine relief, we end up with over $2 billion in annual exports, a thousand jobs for Northerners, joint northern spend of almost $900 million and $69 million in tax revenues annually to the GNWT. So I feel like that's a pretty darn good investment. That being said, I do agree that we do need to have education because education does last forever, unlike our diamond mines, which we do know.

In regards to the diamond mines, they all employ apprentices, and all of the companies that contract with them, a significant number of them, employ apprentices. They're doing workforce development. The Indigenous development corporations also have workforce development plans and are working on exactly what the Member is talking about. And without the dollars from the diamond mines, they can't sustain that. They're also working on social programming, they're working on housing developments. And so, really, this is more than just supporting diamond mines. This is supporting Northerners. This is supporting Indigenous businesses, and this is in support of our future economic development as well. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, as the Premier welcomes the western Canada Premiers to Yellowknife, there's a lot of attention on us today around some recent decisions that Premier Smith in Alberta has made, most notably, I think, my colleague spoke to some of the issues related to trans and nonbinary folks. And let's also talk about the constitutional crisis that the Premier's walking into for some reason. She's cut the threshold for constitutional initiatives in half in her province and is gunning towards a referendum on separation for whatever reason.

If this -- does the -- has the Premier discussed this with Premier Smith and what the result would be for the Northwest Territories if we lose a vital connection to Alberta? Because of course that's our logistic hub. It's a huge economic link. We really can't do without it. So has the Premier had those discussions, and can we have a position on this as a government? Thank you.

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

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Our position hasn't changed on the issues the Member is speaking about. If there are medical services that are no longer available in one jurisdiction, we will work with another jurisdiction to ensure that residents receive those medical services. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker. That's a hypothetical question, and it should be directed to the Attorney General. So I won't be answering it on both those fronts. But I'll say that our track record here in the Northwest Territories on Indigenous rights speak for itself. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.