In my Member’s statement I referred to student financial assistance for students with disabilities seeking post-secondary education and I kind of inadvertently referred to it as being outside of the territory because that seems like where there are specialized programs for students with disabilities.
I’d like to ask the Minister, in his role as being responsible for Aurora College, has the college ever had in place, or ever contemplated putting in place, specialized programming that would allow students with disabilities, who are Northerners, stay here to take post-secondary education in various fields?
I’d just like to thank the Member for asking that particular question. We want to support our students here in the Northwest Territories to stay in the territory at the Aurora College campus. We have three campuses and we need to support those students. With the information the Member is asking for, I don’t have the specific history of it, but I can provide that information.
Part of my ongoing discussion with the president and chair is to raise the profile with them. If there hasn’t been any programming in that area, why not, and how can we move forward on this? I assure the Member that I will be addressing this with the college.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mrs. Groenewegen.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’d like to ask the Minister if part of their consideration of what the college offers now, and what they could offer, would include, perhaps, travelling to or getting into communication with other post-secondary institutions that we do know already offer specialized programming for students with special needs.
My understanding is that there are certain programming for disability cross-functioning with various institutions. I need to get the latest update from the college and provide that to the Members, then we can discuss further how we can improve those programs or make additions.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Range Lake, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I rise in the House today in response to what was tabled earlier this week by the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources entitled Management Actions for Barren Ground Caribou Herds. Immediately I was pleased to hear that we have some herds that are doing quite well, such as the Beverly and Ahiak herds as well as the Bluenose-East herd. Although what was presented as merely a proposal on the potential limited resident harvest of these herds, we were left yet again with many questions unanswered for consideration.
The Minister mentions that we have caribou calving ground surveys, population surveys and recruitment surveys that are ongoing in the co-management and management of the species. Can the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources indicate to this House the differences between the surveys mentioned in that briefing?
Thank you, Mr. Dolynny. The honourable Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We’ve committed a significant amount of money to continue to do baseline work on an ongoing basis on the various herds. There are the major surveys, then there’s the intermediate work that’s done to check the health of the herd. We’ve done that over the summer, as I indicated, over last year and concluding some this year that I laid out in my Member’s statement yesterday. They’ve given us some comfort – more than comfort – some certainty about the herd numbers, to the point where we’re looking at going back to the co-management boards and the consultation processes that are required to look at the current restrictions that are in place.
I do appreciate the Minister’s reply. I think the general population is quite confused. There are too many surveys out there. I think it would probably be well advised if the Minister of the department could be a bit more clear on what these surveys, or the outcome of these surveys, are going to be trying to achieve.
Another question I do have for the Minister of ENR: What is the formal format to allow resident hunters and commercial outfitters to have a meaningful input in all these upcoming management board discussions in the caribou management or, in this case what we’re hearing, limited harvest?
The intent of the various surveys, or the main intent, is to ascertain as close as possible what the herd numbers may be. At the same time as herd numbers, the herd health, cow-calf ratio, those types of things, all towards an eye of making sure we have sustainable herds that are healthy.
Those numbers have told us up until recently, for example, the Bathurst herd has suffered a precipitous decline and stabilized not up but down significantly. It hasn’t really increased from where it bottomed out about three years ago. We know the Ahiak-Beverly herd, the numbers look quite strong and the Bluenose-East as well.
The work is underway. We will be consulting with the various boards, all of which are public boards, as well in the east, with the Beverly and Qaminirjuaq, with the Government of Nunavut. As well as where there are no settled claims, we’ll be involving and consulting with the Yellowknives and Northwest Territories Metis.
I’m hearing some great things, but my question was, do resident hunters or do outfitters have a seat at the table in these so-called public settings. I believe there’s opportunity there in consultation. It will take months and potentially another year to get the proper responses from community consultations regarding resident and commercial harvest allocations.
Can the Minister indicate why temporary tag allocation is not on the table now, especially with all the promising herd numbers discussed in this House?
As Minister I have the authority to act on conservation issues, on emergency issues. Other than that, I am bound and obligated and intend and have to follow the work that’s done through the process involving the various boards, the work that they do that are public boards. They make recommendations and we’re involved in those with our staff as well, but the recommendations come back up through the system. It’s a system that has served us well. We need to make sure that we continue to use that system. We’re going to do that.
These discussions take time. These are very complex areas. They are multi-jurisdictional. Not only multi-jurisdictional within the Northwest Territories but in the case of the Beverly-Qamanirjuaq herd, it flows into, as well, Nunavut. We have a lot of jurisdictions to deal with and a process that we have to follow. We want to make sure we do that. They do very good work and they will do that again in this case, and we are looking by the fall of this coming year, 2013, to be able to sort out what changes will be made to the existing restrictions.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final supplementary, Mr. Dolynny.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We just can assume or will assume that the Minister has had some meaningful consultations with a number of our caribou commercial outfitters here in the NWT. These outfitters have been waiting for years to get back to their livings and livelihood in the industry.
In his discussions, as we hope, has there been an indication as to the number of tags that these outfitters would require to get back into the game?
What the outfitters used prior to the hunting ban was in the neighbourhood of a total of 700 tags, many of which weren’t used annually.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. The Member for Frame Lake, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned earlier, my questions today are for the Premier. I’d like to ask a few questions relating to my statement earlier today.
We heard yesterday, we have heard earlier this week, that we are embarking on a consultation and an engagement process. The Premier, yesterday, in answer to my questions, laid out next steps, but in those next steps I didn’t hear any indication of the provision of information on how the Devolution Final Agreement will be implemented.
I’d like to know from the Premier if he can advise whether or not the public engagement process, whether there’s an intent to educate residents about implementation of the Devolution Final Agreement or is it simply to advise people of the content of the Devolution Final Agreement.
Thank you, Ms. Bisaro. The honourable Premier, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Yes, to both parts.
Thank you to the Premier. I’ve very glad to hear that we will be talking about implementation. I hope that’s a very large focus of the public engagement process.
With regard to implementation, our government has already done a great deal of work. They’ve been working on implementation for probably a year or more. I’d like to know, to date, what steps the government has taken to inform the public, to advise the public of what this new GNWT will look like after April 1st.
We put a significant amount of information on the website, and as we go forward with organization design, we will also provide that on the website. We will also provide for that as we go around to all of the communities in the Northwest Territories.
Thank you to the Premier. It’s one thing to put information on a website and expect that people will go there. I haven’t seen much that advertises that website, so I would hope that there’s going to be significantly more effort put in to trying to get that information out there.
One of the things that I have heard as a concern, and this is from a news article recently, it stated there are concerns that the environment and the preservation of the land will take a backseat to the exploitation of energy and minerals. This is referencing after April 1, 2014, when we have control.
When we do have control of our lands, water and resources, will the GNWT maintain the same level of environmental monitoring and assessment that we have today?
It seems like just yesterday that some of the Members from across the way were quoting from the Commissioner of the Environment, who was complaining about the fact that the federal government was only doing 20 percent of the required land inspections. I’m sure we can do better than that, but if the Member wants us to maintain that level, we can do that too.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. Final, short supplementary, Ms. Bisaro.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Through you to the Premier, I absolutely don’t want us to do worse than what we think we might do, but I have heard nothing which says that we’re going to do better than what we have already from the feds.
The Premier mentions that there’s a lot of work been done. I wonder if the Premier could give us some idea of how our new government will be structured after April 1, 2014.
I don’t want to get ahead of committee, and I’ve committed to committee that we will bring the organizational design, and once we’ve had input from committee, I’ll be pleased to make it available to the public.
Thank you, Mr. McLeod. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. My questions are to the Minister of Environment and Natural Resources. Quite a few years back, the Berger Commission, of course, travelled all over the NWT, and in his report he outlined that before any major development happened, there had to be an effort in particular areas. Recently, there was a vision that envisioned that there would be a network of protected areas from the Yellowstone to the Yukon. Of course, with the initiative on the Protected Areas Strategy in the NWT, it’s brought international recognition.
My question to the Minister: What is the Government of the Northwest Territories’ position on the candidate protected areas in the Deh Cho?
Thank you, Mr. Nadli. The Minister of Environment and Natural Resources, Mr. Miltenberger.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The Government of the Northwest Territories has been fully involved in the Protected Areas Strategy. We have considerable resources invested in that process. We are intent on carrying on with the intent of that process.
There’s going to be a change in relationships here. The federal government is going to be stepping to the side and we are going to be playing a leadership role. We know in the Deh Cho that we are going to conclude Edehzhie and the other candidate areas. We are going to continue to work with the communities and the other stakeholders. We’ve had discussions and I’ve had discussions with the Minister of Environment about the resources that have been identified for these processes and these nominated wildlife areas to ensure that we, in fact, inherit and continue to have some of that funding that was voted by the federal government.
The Protected Areas Strategy initiative has been long established. It’s a tripartite arrangement, as the Minister outlined, between the Government of the Northwest Territories, the federal government and First Nations. What’s really important to recognize is it’s an eight-step process that’s basically driven by communities. The Government of the Northwest Territories has suddenly stepped back from the Protected Areas Strategy process. Can the Minister explain this decision?
Our commitment to that process remains unabated. We’ve had recent meetings with the leadership of the Deh Cho about making sure that we can conclude the land use plan, setting up bilateral meetings between the governments so that we can talk about and resolve issues. I’ve met for a number of hours with the leadership from the Deh Cho on the Wildlife Act to try and resolve their concerns about the Wildlife Act, mainly as it pertains to their land claims. We are fully engaged in that. At that same time, we’re in a transition period as the federal government is going to exit stage left in this area and we’re going to take on a bigger role.
The work is there. We’re going to make sure we make full use of that work. We’re going to review the processes, and we know we have to do work on our northern tools so that when we look at our options, now that we have devolution, we have to be certain that we make full use of all the arrows in our quiver as it pertains to the tools we have to deal with the protected areas.
One community in particular is trying to advance protected areas, and they’ve been working on that for a long time, especially elders that have committed to believing that this process will work on behalf of the communities. PAS areas throughout the North would benefit all Northerners.
What options are available to the Dehcho to continue to advance areas for permanent protection?
The protected area process has eight steps to it. Most of the candidate areas in the Member’s constituency, I believe, are around step five. In my time in government, it has been a process that is… The wheels grind very slow and fine in terms of advancing nominations through the system. We’re committed to that system. We’re going to adjust for devolution, but we’re still fully committed to that. We’re committed to the land use plan in the Deh Cho. We’re committed to concluding our Land Use and Sustainability Framework as a territorial government, so that that broad framing policy gives us the clarity we need to go forward at these various tables, and we’re going to examine more closely the northern tools that are there that have been talked about but, for the most part, underutilized to this point.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Nadli.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Can the Minister assure this House that the pause that the government is taking at this point will not put into peril the PAS process and jeopardize committee funding. Mahsi.
I can clearly commit to the territorial government’s, our government’s commitment to this process. There are discussions underway with the federal Minister in regard to the federal funding. We have not yet concluded the discussions, but the goal clearly is to maintain that funding and keep it available between ourselves and the territorial government so that the work has been done, and the money that was voted by the Parliament of Canada remains there for the use that it was voted for. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Miltenberger. Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have questions for the Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs. My question is related to the Highway Emergency Alerting Protocols. Can the Minister give an update or an explanation as to what that protocol is and how it’s implemented? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. Minister of Municipal and Community Affairs, Mr. McLeod.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In 2007 MACA, in collaboration with the RCMP, Health and Social Services and DOT, developed an NWT Highway Emergency Alerting Protocol. This protocol is intended to help guide the RCMP and community responses to highway emergencies. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, since 2007 has the department had the occasions to use this protocol and what occasions? Thank you.
Mr. Speaker, I would have to get that detail for the Member. Obviously, if something does happen on the highway, there’s a protocol that has to be followed. For specific events, I will gather the information and share it with the Member. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, this protocol, as I highlighted, called the Highway Emergency Alerting Protocol, goes to ensure that all emergency responders understand the roles and responsibilities with respect to accidents. Of course, this is for accidents outside the community boundaries, to ensure training is available and community governments are deprived the opportunity to provide this type of rescue. I’ve been so informed that these protocols were ignored in the most recent accident. Is the Minister aware of the impacts of not following through on these types of protocols?
I’m not aware. That would require some investigation from MACA, that part of it, and see if protocol was followed. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
