Debates of Feb. 24th, 2026

Thank you. To the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I would say more so that people are kind of waiting on the edge of their seats for is what the federal government plans to do with the offshore moratorium. Thank you.

I will go back to the Member from Great Slave.

No, fair enough. And I am sure my colleague down the way has questions about that. So I will cede my time. Thank you.

Thank you. I am going to go to the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, as I've brought up in this House many, many times, I do think that the next economic engine that could fuel this territory is liquefied natural gas, or LNG. Obviously, I've said many times we have a significant amount of that in the Beaufort Delta, both onshore and offshore. I've also talked about in 2021 when I know the department did a pre-feasibility study that stated exactly that, that it was technically feasible and -- technically feasible and financially feasible to look at doing this. And I know I've brought it up in the House but I just want to reaffirm with the Minister that they are, indeed, reaching out to the Inuvialuit who are doing their own LNG project there right now to ensure that we take the next step to move forward to fund a feasibility study, an actual feasibility study now, to move that forward with the department and looking at how we can -- obviously with industry as well, how we can look at developing that LNG. Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. I will go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So, Mr. Chair, absolutely have a meeting set up with the chair of the IRC and this is definitely, I can assure the Member, on our agenda for conversations. And then in addition to that, Mr. Chair, at the end of March, we also have the Arctic Energy Resource Symposium that we participate in as well, and at that meeting we are also meeting with interested people who want to talk about our energy opportunities in the Northwest Territories.

Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you. And yes, that's good to hear and, I mean, I trust that as we move forward talks on getting a feasibility study completed that we're certainly letting the industry know that that is the plan, so they are aware, and obviously they will be involved with some of the information, but that they're aware early on that this is the intent of our government to do that, and I trust that the Minister will be engaging with that and that we do have the proper capacity set up staffing wise to have dedicated staff members to do that. And I am looking at the staffing. I note that there's, you know, right now -- and I get this is minerals and petroleum resources. But we know right now what's happening with the mines in the region, in the territory, unfortunately. We have 53 staff at headquarters up from 51 last year. We have 7 staff members in the Beaufort Delta down from 8 last year. And, Mr. Chair, last time I checked, there wasn't a lot of oil and gas exploration going on in the Great Slave Lake unless there's some secret fracking going on that I don't know about, so I am wondering if the Minister will look at -- well, first of all, why did we decrease the staff in Inuvik by one? And if there's any contemplation moving forward about actually staffing up in the Beaufort Delta, given that, you know, there's some significant action happening there and looking at either staffing up through new positions, new senior positions, to -- you know, to engage with Indigenous governments, to engage with industry, you know, in the region where the action is happening, so to speak, and as well why we -- I don't know whether or not you could do that through transferring positions from the -- you know, from headquarters into the region or whether or not we look at expanding the staffing up there to make sure we have the capacity to do this, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. So it was an admin position that was a duplicative position that was reduced. And in regards to the staffing up, certainly we would want to do so based on need. And so I really hope that together with the Member for Inuvik Boot Lake we get to that need. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I will go to the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yeah and, you know, and I know the Minister is aware and I am happy to work with the Minister and the department on that. You know, some of the folks that we've had presented to us and the folks that work both at headquarters in the region are keen. And I am not saying we don't -- I am not certainly not disparaging the folks we have in place doing the work because I know they're very knowledgeable, and I've had some very good conversations with them. I just want to make sure we have the capacity. Maybe the dream would be a regional envoy for energy policy in Inuvik, Mr. Chair, would be an ideal situation. But yeah, more of a comment than anything, that I think it's going to be, you know, even more important as we move forward and hopefully as we look at developing that natural resource up there to provide some much needed revenue to our territory, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I am going to continue on. Next on my list is the Member from the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I just want to add to some of the discussions from the Member from Frame Lake and Boot Lake here also on these different programs of assistance that is within this activity and the previous. And I like the Minister saying they're looking at marketing and discussions with energy opportunities, and certainly this activity is one of the supports to achieve and continued dialogue and marketing what you have and serving the interest of potential investors. So summarizing all that, I am kind of hoping that there would be additional capital added throughout the year.

If you look at the compensation and benefits line item at $10 million and the delivery of staff costs on the balance of what's left over, so if you take $17 million and add it on to the additional -- the next page on 242, of 1.9 and your staff costs is around and about 50 percent of what you're going to be delivering, so we seem to be spending a lot more on staff to deliver these different types of programs, which are all ideal, but when you look at the demand for energy opportunities, maybe that could be tweaked and expanded on.

If you take an example to that and say okay, Indigenous capacity building is there to support and offset transportation costs for staff from the Indigenous governments to go and publish their position to different conferences, could that capacity building maybe expand on to, say, secondments, for example? So, really, what I am trying to say is how can we broaden this activity and previous activities that recognize the potential.

When I travel back to my dying community, and the Norman Wells Esso is very similar to what we're seeing here in the capital because of the decline in the diamond fields. And just to measure the downside to that, the resupply of the diamond customers in peak years was 9,000 truckloads, and I -- I do believe it's down to, like, 3,000 truckloads now. So that just gives you a real indicator on the decline. However, that shouldn't stop there. You should recognize what you have in terms of assets and growth and wealth and potential, and capitalize on that. When I say we have huge amounts of reserves in gas and coal, believe me, it is true. It is into the billions of cubic feet of gas. And adding on to that inventory, you've got critical minerals. And adding on to that, you've got a huge play referred to as the Canol shale play. Now, if we really want to look at readiness and diversification of the existing inventory we have, we should expand on the resources needed to market that. And I look forward to working with the Minister on readiness, and I really think we need a readiness on the assessment of our current situation in the Sahtu.

And just expanding on the negativity of our economy in that particular region, not only the decline by the ESSO closure, you can look at the losses of the children or the students that are going to be withdrawn from the school. Then on top of that you add on negative more losses because of the Jordan's Principle losses. I am told this region is going to see in the neighbourhood of 35 staff members. Now, what are they all going to do? And you can add on to that and say okay, it's not 35; it's more over 40 considering the closure of the community learning centres. So it just keeps building and building but yet I know I am not discouraged by the negative losses. I want to promote what we have. And What we do have is truly recognized by the assets that we have in that region. We've got incoming players such as Rio Tinto's staking claims there so let's seriously look at that. So I just want to know the continued support from the Minister in resilient approach to build on the existing economic development regional strategy we have, in particular updating that to the decline that we've seen over the last several months. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Okay, thank you. I will go to the Minister.

Thank you very much Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, I want to thank the Member for his comments and questions in there, and the Member is always a huge proponent for economic development across the territory and and also for the strategic infrastructure.

Mr. Chair, when we are talking to industry and their desire to really invest and to build capital for the projects that they're working to develop in the territory, they talk a lot about, you know, the need for energy and the need for roads. And I know that the Member is a huge for -- a huge supporter of the Mackenzie Valley Highway, and it's projects like that that are really going to make further investments in these projects possible for companies. We can't expect industry to come out and build a major highway that extends from one end of this territory to the other but industry is prepared to build spur roads and to build the the pieces that are needed. And that's where ITI comes in as the regulator and the pathfinder of being able to support projects that are in these regions and working closely with strategic infrastructure that's working very diligently on these road builds and these energy solutions in the territory. So I thank the Member for his comments and, certainly, we will continue to work together because there's so much opportunity in this region. Thank you.

Thank you. I will go to the Member from the Sahtu.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. And I've got to compliment the Minister on her energy towards the critical mineral infrastructure fund. Together we supported a client, and at the end of the day the client was lucky in accessing federal capital. Okay, recognizing this crumbling economy here, I am not going to crumble with it, but I really want to look forward to working with the Minister in analyzing these programs and services and how can we utilize this to share and boost our economy, in particular now that we've got some federal money for the one client there for their approval on the critical mineral infrastructure fund. In my recent discussions here over the last six months with the divestment of Cenovus's assets midway between Tulita and Norman Wells, they got a huge play there, and they literally want to give it away to eliminate it from their books. So there's an opportunity there. There's an agreement there between the oil company and the Tulita District Land Corporation. So maybe with different programs we can help the Indigenous potential recognize that opportunity. And maybe they need help in the engineering of that potential. I can only imagine the tie in from one side of the river to the other side of the river tying into the Enbridge Line 21. That technology was proven for 2.5 kilometers upstream from Fort Simpson back in 2018. The technology that's seen two rigs drilling towards each other, and they were offsetted by one centimetre. And I am quite certain that technology could access the resources on the west side of the Mackenzie on the Cenovus play to Line 21. So these are types of discussions I think we should have, and if we had that readiness assessment discussion in the community, I think we -- it'll be shocking, Mr. Chair, to see the potential we do have. As my colleague from Inuvik Boot Lake said many times, we're resource rich and cash poor. So let's recognize that resource and see how we can market it and develop it and bring it into production. As a result of production, royalties will be realized to government. Thank you.

I will go to the Minister.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. For details on the Cenovus play that exists in the Sahtu, I'd like to pass to the deputy minister.

Okay. I will go to the deputy minister.