Mr. Speaker, if the project does get approval, what will this government do to ensure that Gwich’in contractors get a fair share of the work building the Inuvik-Tuk highway? Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Mr. Speaker, again, no decision has been made on procurement on the highway, but our expectation is that people in the Beaufort-Delta and companies in the Beaufort-Delta will be able to work together. There is going to be a lot of work.
Thank you, Minister Ramsay. The Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. In my Member’s statement today I was talking about the Addictions Forum work and certainly trying to compare it to the work that’s already been done to date and tying it equally together with some of the issues I’ve raised, as well as many other Members have raised here in the Assembly today. It’s no surprise to the Minister and I’ve repeated it many times. I believe we need a treatment centre here in Yellowknife and that we need treatment facilities that are appropriate, of course.
My question to the Minister of Health and Social Services today is: Speaking to the Addictions Forum – and I’ll be tying all those three subjects together – what have their interim findings been when they’re out knocking on the doors of the territory’s citizens, and what type of advice and direction are they getting to challenge addictions in a manner that all the previous reports and studies and experts have not provided us? Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Minister of Health and Social Services, Mr. Beaulieu.
Mahsi cho, Mr. Speaker. The forum was not required to provide an interim report or a verbal report back to the department. They’re working with departmental staff. What we’re hearing unofficially is that they are hearing many good recommendations from the communities, and one of the forum members spoke to me in an unofficial capacity and indicated to me that he thought that they had accumulated at least 10 good recommendations from the communities so far. Thank you.
Thank you. I think today is a great opportunity if this Minister of Health and Social Services would like to avail himself to it, which is what are many of those good recommendations? I think he said there may be upwards of 10 recommendations. So what are those good recommendations they’ve been hearing from the communities so we can get a sense of what’s actually happening out there? Thank you.
I don’t know what the recommendations are. The recommendations that the guy mentioned, as he was indicating to me that they had these recommendations, was he did indicate that the communities thought there should be some treatment on the land, that there should be some sort of detoxification in the system, and then also that they should be able to utilize the treatment centre in a way that would be a good piece to the overall treatment of addictions, sort of people in the Northwest Territories. Those are generally the only things that I recall, off the top of my head. Thank you.
Thank you. There have been piles and piles of reports by experts, advice in these particular areas. The government could field a library on its own on how much it’s studied over these particular initiatives.
I’m tying this point to expert advice and expertise on the panel. Maybe the Minister can speak to the expertise this panel brings to this discussion on the Addictions Forum, and maybe he could use this occasion to highlight what expertise and experience they have around this to ensure we’ve got the right people in this process. It seems like one that was kicked off quietly then set out to find some facts, and we won’t hear from them until after it’s done. So there seems to be some gaps as to what experience, strengths and expertise they bring to the table and what they will be bringing to the table for policy advice. Thank you.
Thank you. We have heard lots from outside experts, there’s no question about that. This forum has given us an opportunity to hear from the people, from extended families, friends, neighbours, people who live with addictions every day. These are a group of people who have lived a life of addictions, some of them have lived lives of addictions, some of them are involved with the treatment centres, some of them are involved with counselling at their own community level.
The bottom line is, these are a group of people who we felt would be a good group of people to extract a lot of the solutions from the communities as they travel around. So I guess their expertise is really the life they’ve lived. The group of people that have come together, some of the individuals are very good at organizing the forums, and travelling with the forums, and doing documentation as well as documentation with our staff. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. Final, short supplementary, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. By all means I’m sure that these are good people. I just would have thought we would have heard more about their expertise than the life they’ve lived.
My next question, of course, is the last one, which is: Has the Minister been getting any feedback about two particular areas that I am very passionate about, which is youth treatment options and certainly a treatment centre here for Yellowknife for dealing with addictions? Those are two very important recommendations that I hope are coming forward on how to deal with youth on a youth treatment level, and certainly, as I’d said earlier, a treatment centre possibly for Yellowknife, being one of the largest regions and certainly a catchment area for a lot of problems. Thank you.
Yes, thank you. I haven’t heard from the forum that there was any specific indication from the communities that they met, that they felt there should be a treatment centre located in Yellowknife. I’ve heard that earlier, somebody had indicated that somewhere, but specifically, officially from the forum, I haven’t heard that.
As far as youth treatment goes, I think that initially one of the forum members that we put on there had discussed a lot of youth treatment options with the department previously. So we thought putting her on the forum would bring that to the forefront, but again, officially, no, we haven’t heard about any treatment for youth that would be recommended through the forum. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Beaulieu. The Member for Inuvik Boot Lake, Mr. Moses.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. As I mentioned earlier, we did have a meeting today with Skills Canada and I have some questions here for the Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment. I wanted to ask the Minister how is his department working with Skills Canada and industry together, to get some of our youth that are taking these trades into some of these jobs that we need in industry. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Moses. The Minister of Industry, Tourism and Investment, Mr. Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. We are responsible for the socio-economic agreements and, obviously, industry here in the Northwest Territories, but the responsibility for training and skills development rests with the Department of Education, Culture and Employment. So we work closely with the department on advancing their training initiatives. Certainly, in any meetings we have with industry, training is first and foremost in their mind in trying to identify a workforce here in the Northwest Territories, and accessing younger people is something industry is very interested in here in the NWT. Thank you.
Thank you. Under the socio-economic agreements, is the Minister negotiating dollars for this type of training? He did mention it, but I mean specifically for Skills Canada, because Skills Canada are a small office that do a lot of really good work and they have participants who have gone through the program who have won national awards, international awards, and it would be a great opportunity to continue to support these individuals that go through the Skills Canada program. So is the Minister negotiating specific training dollars for Skills Canada so that we can start supporting participants that go through the program? Thank you.
Thank you. ITI is the lead on the socio-economic agreements and there are a number of components included in the SEAs, that’s why we work with Health and Social Services and with Education, Culture and Employment.
On the training side, there is a component to training in the SEAs, and we certainly look to Education, Culture and Employment when negotiating socio-economic agreements so that we can ensure that there is training, that dollars are going to be put into training people here in the Northwest Territories for jobs. We, again, are continuing to work through Mr. Lafferty’s lead with a pan-territorial approach to mine training here in the North, and we hope to see some progress on that in the very near future.
I just want to get a clarification that when the Minister is negotiating these socio-economic agreements that he actually is negotiating for the whole territory and that negotiations are not specific to where the development is currently happening at the time. Can the Minister confirm that he is negotiating for all participants throughout the Northwest Territories so that somebody from the Beaufort-Delta can actually come and get a job in Yellowknife that have the skills required to have the specific job?
The answer to that would be yes, it’s for the entire Northwest Territories.
Thank you, Mr. Ramsay. The honourable Member for Sahtu, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Again, I am just following up on our road trip last weekend. My back is still sore. However, I’m going to stand here and I want to ask the Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, with all the activity and training going on, if he would review and evaluate the training plans for the Sahtu so that the people in the Sahtu can meet at least once a month to start preparing a strategy to get people on the job, get them trained and get them moving.
Thank you, Mr. Yakeleya. The honourable Minister of Education, Culture and Employment, Mr. Lafferty.
Mahsi, Mr. Speaker. I agree that there should be formal meetings, potentially monthly or quarterly. There are all these different activities happening in the Sahtu region. More specifically, through training, we do have a steering committee of the regional representatives involving different parties as part of their discussion and planning stages. What are the communities’ needs? By all means my department will be sharing that with the Sahtu regional representatives, and they should be having more council meetings preparing for the huge activity that will be happening in the region.
I look forward to working with the Minister in the Sahtu. The winter road is going to close down within, what, 25 days or so? Equipment is going to be sitting idle. However, we in the Sahtu want to start to look at next month.
Can we start assessing, start getting different types of training for the various different programs in the region? I want to ask the Minister if we could speed up the process, inform his department, the oil companies, and the communities and everybody. Let’s sit down in April, May and June and let’s put together a training plan that we can look at starting in July, and so forth, until the opening of the winter roads. That’s what we’re looking for. Would the Minister put the fire under the training committee to get them going?
I do believe there is a plan to have a meeting soon. I will be getting back to the Member on the dates of the meetings, if it’s going to be quarterly or monthly. Activities are happening as we speak. Preparation for the various training initiatives will be taking place. Those are areas that I will be instructing my department to work very closely with the Sahtu region; more specifically, the regional representatives that are on the steering committee to establish those meetings. I will be sharing that with the Member.
If anybody wanted the job, there’s a job to be had in the Sahtu. It’s busy. It’s crazy. People are working. Even down in Nahendeh. Even in Wrigley, as the Minister and I heard. There are jobs up there. However, I want to ask the Minister if he could somehow be directive and forceful and say to the Sahtu, let’s get the training jobs going. We could make a huge contribution. Let’s not give out any more social assistance. Let’s get our people working. That’s what we want. That’s the kind of leadership I’m looking for from the Minister here. Can he do that?
Yes, we can. This is an area that we’re very closely monitoring and there is a huge potential opportunity here. We have to find out the needs of the community. How much manpower is there in the Sahtu region? Who is trainable, employable? What are the training needs in the community? Industries have to be involved as well. We have to get the industries at the table and start discussing this immediately. I agree with the Member, we’re going to fast-track this and have a meeting within hopefully the next couple of weeks.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. Final supplementary, Mr. Yakeleya.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I want to ask the Minister, in regard to preparing a training plan, I believe we have the assessment. Would his department start going into the Sahtu while the winter roads are open in Colville Lake, Fort Good Hope, Deline, and Tulita and Norman Wells, and bring them together? Cut down the cost, be efficient, be effective. Can the Minister do that within 25 days to get things moving?
Yes, this is an area that, again, we’re very interested. Along with the Deh Cho riding, there is a lot of activity happening. We want to expedite the process. The Member is alluding to within 25 days. I think that’s doable. Having our parties involved to get to the Sahtu region, the Deh Cho region, and start talking about the training plan. What is needed in the community? What kind of training is required from the industry’s perspective? Because industry have their own certain criteria of positions. They need to be involved. By all means those are areas that we want tackled from my department’s perspective. We need that data. Definitely, we’ll follow through with that expeditiously.
Thank you, Mr. Lafferty. The honourable Member for Yellowknife Centre, Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last week – the exact date was Monday, February 25th – I had asked the Minister of Transportation some information regarding the work on the winter road, or potential permanent road to the NICO Mine, to the Dogrib communities of Gameti and Whati. In that Tlicho area that I wrote, one of the comments back from the Minister, he says my speculation about the work going on behind the scenes and the person I was talking to from Fortune Minerals is it was all guesswork on the Member’s part. I just received an e-mail from the Minister’s office. Maybe the Minister can inform the House as to what type of guesswork that actually was, because either the Minister has some explaining to do or certainly some clarification to do that it appears it wasn’t guesswork. I have a question for the Minister to clear this up.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The honourable Minister of Transportation, Mr. David Ramsay.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I’ll take that question as notice.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I have a Return to Written Question 7-17(4) asked by Mr. Dolynny on February 13, 2013, regarding the distribution of GNWT jobs.
Later today, at the appropriate time, I will table a document, entitled GNWT Positions to Population Ratio as at December 31, 2012. This document identifies the 33 communities in the Northwest Territories, the number of GNWT positions located in each community and region, and the positions to population ratio for each community. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
Thank you, Mr. Clerk. Item 10, replies to opening address. Item 11, petitions. Item 12, reports of standing and special committees. Item 13, reports of committees on the review of bills. Mr. Hawkins.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. I wish to report to the Assembly that the Standing Committee on Economic Development and Infrastructure has completed its review of Bill 2, An Act to Amend the Territorial Parks Act. The committee wishes to report that Bill 2 is ready for consideration in Committee of the Whole.
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Further to my Return to Written Question 7-17(4), I wish to table the following document, entitled GNWT Positions to Population Ratio as at December 31, 2012.
