Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I give notice that on Monday, March 2nd, 2026, I will move the following motion:

Now therefore I move, seconded by the Member for Yellowknife Centre, that this Legislative Assembly calls upon the Government of the Northwest Territories to establish a Contingency Support Fund to assist Northwest Territories businesses experiencing financial losses due to power outages, including compensation for verifiable outage-related losses and support for preventative measures such as surge protection and continuity planning;.

And further, that the Government of the Northwest Territories expand and revise existing electricity rate subsidies to mitigate the escalating cost of power for both residents and businesses, recognizing the disproportionately high cost of electricity in northern and remote communities;

And furthermore, that the Government of the Northwest Territories direct the Minister responsible to work with utilities, Indigenous governments, and federal partners to create a territorial grid reliability and modernization investment plan to address upgrades to aging transmission and distribution infrastructure and invest in reliable and alternative energy sources to reduce diesel use and long-term costs;

And furthermore, that the Government of the Northwest Territories invest in emerging and proven technologies that reduce power costs, increase system efficiency, and improve grid reliability, including but not limited to community-scale battery energy storage systems and advanced artificial intelligence-based energy management solutions to ensure sustainable, affordable, and resilient energy delivery for all residents;

And furthermore, that the Government of the Northwest Territories respond to this motion in 120 days.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Range Lake. Notices of Motion. Motions. Notices of motion for the first reading of bills. Minister of Justice.

Thank you, Minister of Justice. Notices of motion for the first reading of bills. First reading of bills. Second reading of bills. Consideration in Committee of the Whole of bills and other matters, with the Member from Tu Nedhe-Wiilideh in the chair.

I will now call the Committee of the Whole to order. What is the wish of the committee? I'm going to go to the Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. Mr. Chair, the committee wishes to consider Committee Report 35-20(1), Standing Committee on Public Accounts Report on the Review of the Auditor General's 2025 Audit of Protected and Conserved Areas in the Northwest Territories. Mr. Chair, the committee also wishes to consider Tabled Document 448-20(1), 2026-2027 Main Estimates, the department of EIA.

Okay. Thank you. Does committee agree?

Thank you. Committee, we have agreed to consider Tabled Document 448-20(1), 2026-2027 Main Estimates. We will now resume on consideration of the Indigenous intergovernmental relations key activity of the Department of Executive and Indigenous Affairs on page 142. Does the Minister of Executive and Indigenous Affairs wish to bring witnesses into the House.

I do.

Does committee agree?

Thank you. Sergeant-At-Arms, please escort the witnesses into the chamber.

Thank you. Would the Minister please introduce the witnesses.

Thank you. Tram Do, director of shared corporate services; John MacDonald, deputy minister. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you. Are there any questions? I'm going to go to the Member from the Sahtu.

Thank you, Madam Chair. My presentation is more of a comment. After we left here yesterday and the Member from Frame Lake sharing issues of concerns on progress, and the Member from Yellowknife North as well on the ongoings of the IGC and this department,

I totally agree with the partnership, the discussions that have been going on, and the presentation and replies from the Minister saying that this organization meets once a year. But considering our recent changes to the economy and the declining departures of resource development and the players being Imperial Oil and the diamond companies, considering that, considering the royalty losses and issues at hand being Arctic sovereignty, energy security, devolution, co-drafting of regulations, claims, land claims and self-government, all that in one basket I recommend to the Minister that maybe, in consideration, one meeting per year is not enough. Maybe a review of a new mandate for the remaining term of this Assembly is needed to expedite some of the rules for conclusion to welcome investors from the investment community, whether they're national investors or international investors. So I just bring that up and also take it into consideration there's different rules of engagement for the whole territory. Some of the rules in the North are really totally different because of the entrenched land claim. We have Chapter 21, for example, that give rights in the Sahtu land claim for incoming developers. So that's just one example.

So at the end of the day there, Madam Chair, half of the territory is split with a modern set of rules in your modern treaty, and the other half is still underneath negotiations. So maybe that should be an element for consideration in restructuring the mandate of these two groups going forward. So I share that, Madam Chair. And maybe the Minister is going to respond with some previous discussions that happened between both parties that would take this into account, but that's my recommendation. Thank you, Madam Chair.

Thank you. I am going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I will start with a question the Member asked yesterday, and it's about our meeting fund. And there is an increase in our intergovernmental meeting fund to ensure that there is more participation, more ability to participate for Indigenous governments.

In terms of the meeting frequency of the IGC, that is something that I am considering. Again, we are only one partner at that table, but I do see that there would be value in more communication. And so we don't have a plan on that yet. We have to go and speak with the secretariat, and there are a number of pressures on the time of the Indigenous governments and their officials as well, so I can't say for certain what will come of that but I do agree with the Member that more frequent meetings could be useful.

And in terms of the structure of the Intergovernmental Council, so I have an interest in ensuring that we have, as much as we can, a cohesive system across the territory. We have one system across the territory. And so the way it operates now, it is essentially -- it's all under the one Act. And I want to ensure that we can provide that -- continue to provide that level of certainty to industry and developers and the people of the territory as well. But, you know, these are all -- as was pointed out yesterday, there's no precedent for a lot of the things that we do in the territory in regards to Indigenous governments and the public government in that relationship and so there is -- we have to figure this out. Devolution has been around for about a little over ten years now, and I think it is time to assess how it's working and how it can work going forward. And so that's all part and parcel of the review that is beginning shortly. Thank you.

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

Thank you, Madam Chair. I've got nothing further to add but if I do down in the coming weeks there, I will certainly share to the Minister via email. Mahsi.

Okay, thank you. Next on my list I have is the Member from the Dehcho.

Thank you, Madam Chair, allowing me the opportunity to ask a couple more questions to the Minister. For the Dehcho process or the Dehcho land claim process, what is the major blocks to concluding the negotiations in this process? Thank you.

Okay, thank you. I am going to go to the Minister.

Thank you, Madam Chair. And I want to be careful not to try to -- or be seen as negotiating on the floor of the House. Like those types of discussions need to happen at the negotiation table. But there are disagreements about -- or not disagreements. There is differences of opinion on some significant issues related to land and wildlife and some of these things. But that being said, we are making progress on those and there is progress in other areas as well. The Dehcho are very committed to advancing this, and so are we. And so we're seeing progress. As I've said, I've had a number of meetings with representatives from the Dehcho this week and over the past number of weeks, and I am going to follow up with them and continue those discussions. So I think the hurdles are traditional issues that have been around for decades, and I think they're laid out in some of the early documents. But I don't think that they're insurmountable, and I think we can find a way to work together and come to a solution. It would mean being creative, and it might be a solution that doesn't look like anything else in the territory. But that's fine. But we just have to get there, and I think we can. Thank you.