Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I, too, would like to recognize Grand Chief Jackson Lafferty. We had the privilege of working together during the 18th Assembly. Mahsi.
Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member from Thebacha.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to recognize Grand Chief Lafferty and Dahti Tsetso in the gallery. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Thebacha. Recognition of visitors in the gallery. Member from Hay River North.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would also like to recognize our former colleague and current Grand Chief Mr. Jackson Lafferty as well as Major Tony Brushett with the Salvation Army, who is one of those NGO partners that I spoke about earlier today. So thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Hay River North. Recognition of visitors in the gallery.
If we missed anyone in the gallery today, welcome to your chamber. I hope you are enjoying the proceedings. It's always nice to see people in the gallery.
Again, thank you, Mr. Spooker. So Mr. Spooker, yesterday in my Member's statement I talked about autism. And we know that there are professionals, family members are leaving the North because of the lack of ability to either get diagnosed or services for autism, Mr. Speaker. So my questions will be targeted to the Minister of Health and Social Services.
Now, the Canadian average says 2 percent of the population has autism, or I should say has been diagnosed. And if you use a standard deviation, that's 900 people in the Northwest Territories. My question is, does the health department know how many people in the NWT region by region are identified as having a diagnosis of autism? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Member from Yellowknife Centre. Minister of Health and Social Services.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I don't have that level of detail here today. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, does the Minister of Health and Social Services have an idea as to how many assessments are done on young people to, again, diagnose them as officially having autism? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, that level of detail, you know, if there are -- information at that level of detail, I can get the information for the Member and get back to him on that. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Does the Minister -- I'll accept the Minister's offer.
Does the Minister know or is aware of what services are provided to people who have autism in the context of physio, speech, etcetera? Does she know -- is she aware of the resources and what is available to those parents? Thank you.
Thanks, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, autism has a wide range of needs, and so every case would be assessed and identified as to what their needs are and then they would be, you know, referred to those appropriate services within the health authority to do further assessments. However, a lot of the services in those areas, we have a lot of vacancies and so there are -- there might be wait times for those services to be assessed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Health and Social Services. Final supplementary. Member from Yellowknife Centre.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Properly assessing young people with -- or diagnosing, I'll say it that way, my apologies, properly assessing the diagnosis of autism is a very specialized field, and families have told me they struggle to get a diagnosis and then therefore they do not get the supports and treatments, which early intervention would make the world of difference. Does the Minister know what the average wait time is for diagnosis of autism using a specialist? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, again, I don't have that level of details here in the House, so I will have to get back to the Member with that information. 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, my Member's statement today I talked about the increase in Inuvik, and I know when I get back next week, Mr. Speaker, as they say, I'm gonna have some 'splainin' to do. So I'd like the Minister to explain why there was an increase in Inuvik and only Inuvik for the liquor increases? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Inuvik Boot Lake. Minister of Finance.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we have recently concluded an agreement with the local contractor in Inuvik to extend the contract that we had there. That -- and it's been extended only for the rest of this calendar year. I can say, Mr. Speaker, that the pricing system is fairly simple in a way. There's the landed costs of alcohol arriving in the Northwest Territories, there's an NTLCC markup which has not changed. We have an administrative fee NTLCC has not changed. And then there's whatever rate is applied through the commission from our various sales agents. So, again, Mr. Speaker, I can't necessarily speak to, you know, here what that choice might have been on the part of them, but there was recently an extension concluded with the local company in Inuvik. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. So, Mr. Speaker, I assume that with the extension, there was some increases obviously. I know that the liquor in the liquor store is sold by volume and not by -- and the prices are certainly set by the liquor commission, by this government. I guess my question is does the Minister -- obviously if the contract's expired, when is the current RFP scheduled to close?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. There is right now a request for proposals out. That closes on November the 8th, Mr. Speaker. There's also a separate procurement process in place looking to actually have a new lease for the space where we would be able to sell -- or where a proponent would be able to sell alcohol in the North -- in Inuvik, the hope being that by splitting up the contract a little more it brings on, perhaps, a bit of competition and an opportunity to try to keep some costs a little bit lower, understanding that it's getting more expensive to do just about everything in the North. So hopefully by doing it that way, we're hoping to get a little more competition going. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, in typical situations like this, would we not have the RFP concluded and of course awarded prior to the existing contract being finalized? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, I've also been hearing from residents in Inuvik asking why alcohol prices, liquor prices are going up. Again, at this point, Mr. Speaker, the prices on our end haven't changed. Why there needed to be an extension, I've made that inquiry as well. It does seem like there was a delay -- that the last contract was coming due, there was a delay in getting this one out, so there's now an extension in place and so that there can be sales available for residents in Inuvik. And as I said, the new RFP is now out looking for a permanent proponent. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Final supplementary. Member from Inuvik Boot Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, when the Minister says the prices on our end haven't changed, we set the prices, so the contract states that the sale of liquor, sale of beer, sale of coolers, sale of liquor in the liquor store, is based on the prices set by the liquor commission, by GNWT. So ipso facto I guess our prices must have changed. Now, whether they changed through negotiation or not, but they would have had to have changed, Mr. Speaker. Has the price, previous to the end of this contract and now the price of the extension, has our price per liter changed, Mr. Speaker?
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the only element in that formula that I read out earlier that's changed is the commission that we're paying to the contractor in Inuvik, and that commission that we're paying to the contractor in Inuvik is the negotiations that would go on with any proponent. And that was when we had to extend -- or sought to extend the contract that they had previously. During that negotiation, the commission that they negotiated for themselves went up, and so the prices have gone up. Thank you.
Thank you, Minister of Finance. Oral questions. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in my Member's statement, and in speaking with firefighters in Yellowknife, there is a huge cost to firefighter training in the Northwest Territories because we don't have agreements with certification bodies that exist in larger jurisdictions. Now, Nunavut, a couple of years ago, entered into one of these agreements. Their costs have gone from, you know, $700 a training session to $75. This is something our fire marshal can do. Can the Minister commit to lowering the cost of fire training -- of training for firefighters in the Northwest Territories? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Range Lake. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I'm unaware of any costs for the training that they had in Nunavut; however, conveniently, I was actually just speaking to the department this morning regarding fire training and our ability to try to make some changes in it and training that will better serve the communities in the Northwest Territories, larger centres. Conveniently enough, I've been involved in the fire service for 30 years in the territories and larger centres have the benefit of having resources for training and the ability to do more training; however, it comes down to a level of service throughout the communities and we need to look at different ways of doing things for the communities. I've gone through three or four different cycles of training challenges and changes, and I think there's a time now to change and benefit the communities throughout the territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I knew this was the right Minister to talk to, not only because it's his portfolio but it's his passion. So after 30 years, I'm glad he's going to bring that energy to the role, Mr. Speaker. What fire service training is currently offered through the Office of the Fire Marshal? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently, right now there isn't a whole bunch of offered training; however, what it is is we do support regional centres to do training and they invite other communities, if they want, and the Department of MACA reimburses the training that they provide. However, some of the smaller communities were offered defensive level training in a program that was done quite some time ago. The department is currently looking at a new way of offering this training to the community. So there is different standards based on the level of service to the community. So there is work to get the training out there for the communities. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Does the Minister know what the mandatory cost for -- or the mandatory certification for firefighters, how much it costs, and who covers that cost? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Currently, right now a lot of the communities can apply to MACA to get that cost covered. However, again, depending on the level of service, so for an example the city of Yellowknife was raised -- you know, you'll have a base level of service of having an FP1001 it's called, which is a base level training for career firefighters. In a small community, that would be really excessive for them and that's a very expensive cost, so you'd probably end up with something like a defensive level. So depending on the community is what the cost is going to be. It's hard to actually put down a whole -- an actual pinpointed value to take in the training. It's all depending on what they're taking in for the communities. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Final supplementary. Member from Range Lake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, will the Minister work with or make a commitment to follow up with the Yellowknife fire department and work with them to improve access and costs to training? They're the real experts in this area. They brought these concerns to me and they can speak to this far better than I can. So will the Minister commit to working with our local fire chief here in the capital? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I am more than willing to work with the Member and definitely, you know, the interested -- I'm interested in working with the Yellowknife fire department also in order to see what their requests or wants are. But at the end of the day, we have 33 communities to look after and we have to do something that covers them all, and sometimes when we do training in a regional centre, it takes a lot of the budget and it takes away from the smaller centres, so we have to be careful with that. So I will look forward to working with the Member and see what we can do there. Thank you.
Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. Oral questions. Member from Monfwi.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, can the Minister tell us what is the current demand versus the capacity of the Mezi School? Thank you.
Thank you, Member from Monfwi. Minister of Education, Culture and Employment.
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, the capacity of Mezi School is 170, and the current student head count is 142 students. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you. Thank you for that information. So, Mr. Speaker, are projections for the demand for classroom space tracked by the department?
Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Mr. Speaker, we look at how many students are in all grades. We have enrolment figures that come in from education bodies every year, and we also track that compared to the capacity of each school across the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister commit to looking at the condition of the Mezi School in Whati?
