Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. I’d like to welcome everybody here in the gallery today. Mr. Shawn Maley, a good old friend from up in Inuvik back in the early days. Welcome here, everybody. Also to Mr. Koe, I see you’re going to be playing your brother first game, so good luck. We’re all behind you.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment. Evidence suggests that suspending a bully is not effective because it basically rewards the bully with a vacation from school.
I’d like to ask the Minister, what progress has the department made towards a tiered approached to discipline in the schools with suspensions as a last resort?
Thank you, Mrs. Groenewegen. The Minister of Education, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. The bullying has been the highlight of the day today and throughout all schools across the Northwest Territories it’s a special day for us. We talk about the suspension for those bullies that are bullying the students, and we’ve been dealing with the school boards on how we can develop a plan of action. There is a draft Safe Schools Plan by this department in early June of 2014, working in collaboration with all the school boards to deal with those matters that Member Groenewegen is alluding to, where if there’s going to be a suspension it’s considered as a vacation. We heard that from the students. We want to take those seriously into consideration, so those are the discussions we’re going to have, and we’re going to develop a plan of action in 2014 that’s coming this summer.
I’d like to thank the Minister for that. Can the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment describe his department’s efforts to address bullying through collaboration with any other departments such as Municipal and Community Affairs or the Department of Health and Social Services? Could the Minister describe if there are any of those kinds of collaborations taking place?
I’m glad the Member is asking that specific question. Yes, indeed, it is a collaborative effort. It’s not just the Education department. As Member Bisaro also alluded to, we’re in a workforce environment, so it does cover all spectrum of activity that is happening in the schools, outside the schools, so working in collaboration with MACA, Health and Social Services, the Justice department and other departments are getting involved. It is one of our priorities, as well, to prevent bullying from happening in the school environment, in the work environment and in other places within the Northwest Territories. It is a collaborative effort.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Colleagues, before we go on today, I’d like to recognize today in the House that it’s Mr. Blake’s birthday today. I’d also like to wish Mr. Bromley’s mother a happy birthday. It’s her 88th birthday.
---Applause
Happy birthday, and hopefully you’ll have cake today, son.
The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Today I have questions for the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment and it is dealing with income assistance.
I’d just like to ask the Minister, what does the department do for people who are stricken to their homes or place of residence and have challenges such as disabilities, reading, writing challenges, anything that might hinder them from being able to go to the income support office to get the assistance in filling out an application? What does the department do with people that need this type of assistance and are stricken to their home? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I did raise cutting some red tape in this House. That is one of the areas we’ve initiated with income support, the reporting mechanism on a monthly basis like we have on a quarterly basis or every six months type of deal. So those with disabilities, we highly recognize them. We want them to have an easier life than all these different reporting mechanisms. Some can’t walk to the office and we recognize that as well. We’ve made some changes in that respect.
We have client service officers working diligently with those clientele that have the disability. Most times the CSO would go to their household, as well, to assist them as much as we possibly can. We want to make it easier for those people with disabilities. It’s my department’s goals and objectives to reach out to them. Mahsi, Mr. Speaker.
The Minister alluded to my second question. That was how do we reach these individuals who are in their homes. Do we have a community outreach worker or a mobile client service officer for the communities? I know in some of the smaller communities, we have these government service officers that might be able to help, but in some of our regional centres where the GSOs aren’t readily available -- we have a higher population – our home care can address these as well. They usually help in that case.
Can the Minister confirm that in the regional centres that we do have mobile client service officers that go into the homes to help fill out applications that are needed? I’m also really concerned about the safety of these client service officers that might be going into these houses and if they are being accompanied by any type of RCMP officer. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Indeed, safety becomes a factor when it comes to client service officers dealing with clientele. It goes both ways. We do have client service officers in most of the communities; and those communities that may not have it, we have regional representatives. I just met with the client service officers from across the Northwest Territories just last week and I had a really good discussion with them. I wanted to share their perspective because they are grassroots people dealing with clientele on a day-to-day basis. I was very appreciative, listening to what they are faced with, their challenges. We talked about going to households and how they can assist people with disabilities or elderly couples. We are doing what we can to reach out to those individuals who are most vulnerable. We have to respect their situation as well. It’s our understanding, within the department, to reach out to those individuals and support them in any way we possibly can. Thank you.
The Minister mentioned that it works both ways and I agree. Our client service officers do a lot of work and work with a lot of individuals who sometimes get a little irritated with the process. Mainly I’m just worried about their safety if we do have a mobile client service officer going into the households of some of our clients.
The next question I have for the Minister is whether or not we have proper training across the whole department from region to region to ensure that the assessment that our client service officers do and the directors who approve these assessments have the proper training to do so. In one area people are getting a better assessment than others. So I wonder if that training is the same right across the Northwest Territories and whether or not there’s training available on a yearly basis to bring these individuals in. Thank you.
Those are some of the areas I wanted to share about from the front-line workers and I did hear about them last week. I’m going to be meeting with my senior staff in the department on income support and start implementing some of the key areas such as professional development and what kind of training is required to deal with critical situations.
So, what the Member is addressing here is very important to our client service officers and clientele. We are going to make sure that the training programs are in place. There are some training programs we are currently conducting. I want us to enhance these even further to deal with our clientele who are most vulnerable. It is in the works and we are going to improve those programs as well. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Short, final supplementary, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I would just like to ask the Minister what authority he has to make any recommendations for particular or special cases when he’s dealing with his directors in his offices. What authority does he have as Minister? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
When it comes to making decisions based on the clientele’s needs, we have to follow the policies, regulations and also the legislation that has been passed in this House. At the end of the day, the decision lies within my department. I’m the overall person in charge of authority of income support. The client service officers work in the communities with the clientele and work with the directors. It goes under my shop as well. We have to keep in mind that there are regulations, legislation that we have to follow, to meet the needs of individuals in the communities. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Weledeh, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions today are for the Minister of ITI. I would like to follow up on his statement from earlier today. We have just recently learned that ITI will be taking over as oil and gas regulator as of April 1st. The previous regulator was the National Energy Board, a public board – a public board – with a mandate to ensure that all oil and gas development was in the national interest. As this is just a few weeks away, I wonder if the Minister can tell me what the mandate of the oil and gas regulator will be. Mahsi.
Thank you, Mr. Bromley. The honourable Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned in the House yesterday, our hope is to get in front of standing committee with our plans moving forward on regulating oil and gas activity here in the Northwest Territories. Our plan is to have as seamless a transition as possible. We’ve got service agreements set up. We want to ensure that we are protecting the environment and, at the same time, growing the economy here in the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
I didn’t hear a mandate there. I hope we get it figured out in the next 32 days. Mr. Speaker, ITI obviously doesn’t have the internal capacity to suddenly become the oil and gas regulator, so we have to contract out services, as the Minister mentioned, for example, from the NEB or another province. We could have stuck with the NEB who already knows the NWT very well or gone with the British Columbia commission, as the Yukon has chosen to do, but we chose to use the services of the Alberta Oil and Gas Regulator.
Given their record of treating the NWT as a convenient dumping ground for everything they are allowing to dump into the Athabasca River, why would we choose Alberta to provide these services? Mahsi.
Our goal and objective is to grow the capacity to regulate the oil and gas industry here in the Northwest Territories by residents of the Northwest Territories. We do not have the capacity. That’s why we’re reaching out to both the National Energy Board and the Alberta Energy Regulator and we’re also looking at the possibility of some work with the BC Oil and Gas Commission as well. We need to bring that expertise to bear come April 1st and we are setting the wheels in motion to allow us to do that.
I take some issue with the Member’s concerns about the regulator in Alberta. They do have 75 years of experience regulating the industry in Alberta. We have confidence that they have the technical and professional expertise available to us to allow us to continue to regulate the oil and gas industry here in the Northwest Territories.
For the activity that is currently underway, we have a transitional agreement with the National Energy Board to allow us, again, to see a seamless transition as possible into the new regime, which will see the oil and gas regulatory system be taken care of by the Government of the Northwest Territories on behalf of the people of the Northwest Territories. Thank you.
Thanks to the Minister. I’d like to respond to that. Tar sands ponds that leak six million litres of contaminated tailings per day into the Athabasca River, steamed crude oil bubbling up through northern Alberta wetlands in multiple sites, coal mine tailings ponds collapsing. That is the record of the Alberta Energy Regulator in just the last six months.
Do we really grow responsible capacity, as the Minister says, by bringing so-called experts with such a poor record and pro-industry bias into our regulatory system? Why did we not simply continue with the National Energy Board? Mahsi.
Thank you. It’s important that the Government of the Northwest Territories has the ability to direct where we want to go with the industry here in the Northwest Territories. On the policy side of things, it’s going to be our government that directs the policy direction. It’s going to be in the best interests of the Northwest Territories when our government is in control of the regulation on oil and gas activity here in the Northwest Territories.
The last time I checked, we do not have oil sands located in the Northwest Territories. I’m not sure what the Member is trying to get at, but let me be clear, Alberta has the most experience and I listen to Members talk about hydraulic fracturing and the fact that we’re going to have hydraulic fracturing here in the Northwest Territories. We’ve got a couple of wells being drilled today in the Sahtu. Alberta has the most experience, the most technical experience and professional staff available to allow us to look at hydraulic fracturing here in the Northwest Territories. That’s where we’re going to get the expertise and help. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Bromley.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Thanks to the Minister. The experience has no correlation with doing it right; of course, we know that.
The National Energy Board recently announced that it would require worst case financial security deposits on all oil and gas exploration. Some junior exploration companies were complaining that they could not afford to explore on the same scale as big companies if they had to pay clean-up costs in advance and I heard the Minister complain about this progressive attempt towards responsible management, presumably from lobbying by these companies. Is this shift away from the NEB a signal that our NWT oil and gas regulator does not agree with the NEB’s responsible approach proposed? Mahsi.
We are going to have a made-in-the-North solution to this as we move forward. Again, it’s important that we put our best effort into getting a situation here where it’s going to see us have as seamless a transition as possible. We are continuing to work with the National Energy Board. Come April 1st we’re going to inherit the regulations and policies of the National Energy Board. We’re going to inherit the federal acts that regulate the industry here in the Northwest Territories. After April 1st, if it’s deemed necessary, we can amend some of that legislation, we can enact policies. The world certainly will be our oyster after April 1st. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I spoke about the artists and the stories behind their artwork and where we live and what my mother has told me in the stories. I can fondly remember her telling me about putting my jacket together and there are many stores out there in the Northwest Territories.
I want to ask the Minister of ITI in his document on supporting the local artists in the Northwest Territories, there is an accounting collection project that’s happening within this department that’s about going to the communities to collect stories. I see there are some communities. Is there going to be an annual report or is he going to each community? You know it would be certainly nice to hear people talk about the moose hair tufting or the birchbark basket making or just know what do they do and how they put this work to life that supports their own culture and their way of doing things. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The department continues to support the advancement of arts and crafts across the Northwest Territories. We have a new program called the High Procurement Program where we can get out and get tanned hides and ensure that they get in the hands of artists and craft makers around the Northwest Territories. This is something that we feel is going to be very successful for artists and artisans across the territory to enable them to get to work with hides and fur products from across the Northwest Territories and incorporate those into their artwork. Thank you.
That’s a good initiative. I want to ask the Minister, in one of the projects do you sit down with an artist that tells you and documents why they do this type of work we call art? For them it’s love of their skill and they develop it. Why do women and men sit and why do they make moose skin boats that go to Deline? Why do they bead? What’s the document? Why do we sit down and make birchbark baskets, or go up to Ulukhaktok and why do they make these prints? What’s the story behind the art? What’s the real meaning?
Thank you. I think what the Member is getting at could be incorporated, and will be incorporated, in our Aboriginal Tourism Strategy. I mentioned this yesterday in the House. It is something that a lot of other jurisdictions across the country are watching as it unfolds.
We want to increase awareness and support for Aboriginal tourism amongst Aboriginal communities. We want to improve skills for Aboriginal businesses involved in the Aboriginal tourism industry. What the Member is talking about fits perfectly into this type of strategy because when people come here to visit the Northwest Territories they want to hear a story. They want to hear why that person sits there and builds a moose skin boat in the community and the community gets together to build a moose skin boat. That’s why the movie played at the Prince of Wales Northern Heritage Centre for years on the moose skin boat project and it’s very important that that type of story is incorporated in an Aboriginal Tourism Strategy for the Northwest Territories. Again, that’s why we’re working with communities across the territory to ensure that happens. Thank you.
Mr. Ramsay gets my point and that’s, for example, building a moose skin boat. When I saw that the other day with some of the Members here, I certainly had a sense of sadness and pride in a skill that was once and was our means of survival and our love of the land.
I want to ask the Minister, in the collection and the documenting of our artists and their stories, to date there has been a collection from Yellowknife, Inuvik, Tuktoyaktuk, Ulukhaktok, Aklavik, Tsiigehtchic and Fort McPherson, and over 100 registered artists from these communities had the opportunity to share. Are we going to see some of this documentation such as for the Sahtu or the Deh Cho or Tu Nedhe or any other regions, Tlicho, that have this documentation and we can sit down and say that’s why people in that region do it this way because that’s the meaning behind the art? It’s the meaning behind the art. It’s like finding the meaning behind Michelangelo’s paintings.
When we first brought the Aboriginal Tourism Champions together, one of the first meetings was called Sharing Our Culture. What the Member is talking about is very important. It’s a discussion that I will commit to having with the Minister of ECE. I believe the museum is doing some work in that regard and we’ll certainly report back to the Member on what I find out from ECE. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. This can be also an educational process. If you look, for example, in the Sahtu, if you look at the fish scale artwork done in Fort Good Hope or the fish nets made out of willows in Colville Lake or the beading in Deline or the moose skin boat in Tulita, they all have meaning behind it. It would be nice to have a CD at the end of the project so kids can take it and then they can understand. Visitors can listen to it and say this is the meaning behind the art for this region; this is why they do this art.
I’d like to ask the Minister if that’s something that he can bring to the Arts Strategy to look at and say bring up these CDs so we can learn about the artist and the work behind the art.
Again, it’s very important that we keep the stories alive and we keep the culture alive, and that’s only going to be done if we preserve that and get it done one way or another. I know there are maybe opportunities through the school curriculum, maybe, to have that story told over and over again and become, eventually, part of a school curriculum.
Again, I made a commitment to speak to the Minister of ECE. I will do that and get back to the Member.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The Member for Mackenzie Delta, Mr. Blake.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Over the years I have brought up the concern from the communities that there’s a lack of housing that’s needed. As we just passed the budget for this upcoming year, I’d like to ask the Minister of Housing, how many units are planned for the communities in the Mackenzie Delta?
Thank you, Mr. Blake. The Minister of Housing, Mr. R.C. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The capital budget we just passed, I think there were two units that were allocated for one of the Member’s communities, and there was an additional nine with the replacement of the Joe Greenland Centre in Aklavik, so that’s 11 that we have for this year. As well, through the Modernization and Improvement Program, which is a major retrofit, we’ve got 19 units scheduled for the Member’s riding.
That’s really good news, by the way. I’d also like to ask the Minister, I know when we do get new units, a lot of times they’re just replacements, so in the future, when are we going to get more units as add-ons?
